Missing Nin Village!
by Galleons 'n'Gold
Summary: As evolution runs its course leaving behind a ravaged earth, Harry Potter- The Master of Death restarts the evolution cycle. The resultant species are a lot different but in many ways the same.
1. Chapter 1

Orochimaru blinked his eyes and his slits narrowed further. The chakra flared in his eyes and his eyes glowed for a moment, verifying what he was seeing and checking it twice. There was no elaborate genjutsu, no foreign chakra in his system. If it was, he was very sure he couldn't get rid it off. After all, if one was skilled enough to trap him, there was nothing he could do in this level of Genjutsu. Still thinking that his mind was playing tricks on it, he took out a kunai, ready for any attack on his person.

He would prefer not to, but in the life of ninja, there was no such thing as wishful thinking. Really, he would be able to take care of the threat, but here, so far away from Hidden Leaf Village, he had little clue of what, or, who he would encounter. The hunter-nin were a tenacious branch. He had to give his sensei credit there and after three days of constant running and killing he was getting irritated.

They never give up, do they? Not even when their opponent was vastly superior. He knew what they were trying to do but it wouldn't work for one simple reason. He was a Sanin. No matter how long you draw out the battle, the legendary Sanin outclassed you in stamina, chakra strength and finesse.

And so, he looked up to the gate, reading once again the letter written in semi-circular, concentric iron bars- Welcome to the Missing Ninja Village!

Is this a joke?

He could feel the creepiness surrounding him and to his shock, he found it comforting. Jiraya said he was a creepy person and he had echoed that sentiment out loud as well. The gate had opened spontaneously, and then closed on its own as well, as he walked inside. He saw a table and on it were pen and paper; with various questions written on it. The fog surrounding him had not dispersed, thickened even! Yet, he couldn't sense any presence in the mist.

He had thought about Kirigakure ninjas, having Mist ninjas but he had his trusty sword with him. He looked at the paper and picked up the pen, and started reading it.

 _Welcome to the Missing Nin Village! Are you a missing ninja? If so, of which Village?_

There was a box provided between a Yes, and a No. Orochimaru exhaled through his mouth, and put a tick mark on a Yes. His hiate-tie would answer a part of the question.

 _Were you chased out or left voluntarily?_

There was an underline, which, Orochimaru suspected was, to pen down the answer. Again, with great thought, and patience on his part, he scribbled down the answer.

 _Are you planning to stay for long or/and until you have evaded the notice of hunter nins?_

Again, there was a box with a Yes, No and an Unsure. Orochimaru ticked on Unsure, giving the paper a mocking smile.

'Want me to reveal my intentions now, kukuku'.

There were few questions more, like 'what rank were you when you left' and 'what rank would you classify yourself now', which Orochimaru wrote down quickly. He was now becoming more amused than angry or impatient, wanting simply to know who had the balls to put up a village, not even a Hidden one, for the world to see.

Really, if he would have made the Hokage, he would've crushed it so himself! Finally there was another at the end of the page.

 _Thank-you for filling out the questionnaire. Please leave suggestions/remarks (if any) down here on how to improve this experience to you._

There were few dark lines, extending till the very end. Orochimaru hoped this would be the end of this test, or intel-gathering thing, whatever this exercise was.

It would be nice if I knew, who or what, a ninja was getting into.

Orochimaru wrote, despite his sudden desire to crush the paper into a ball throw it out, in the circular fog which made everything disappear from a three meter radius. There were hunter ninja's out for his hide and he didn't want to loose the time he had gained on them filling out forms, dammit! Although, he would like to meet this leader of this village in person.

"We tried that, back a few weeks when I formed this village." Orochimaru calmly looked forward, looking at the figure. Thin and agile. Can dodge projectiles, possibly; he thought taking in his features. "The ninjas that came were to weary or suspicious of the person than to write down answers correctly, alone." Full sleeve clothing, but not loose- letting only his wrists show. Orochimaru saw, thinking about the Hokage. Or, how unlike him. Not a weapons, user; he thought. A jutsu user. He perked up, thinking how he could use it to his advantage and what jutsus he could see and analyze.

The cloth or whatever he was wearing ended down open, leaving free movement with his legs. There was a trouser like thing, clinging loosely.

"You wouldn't believe this one time a foreign diplomat entered our village, running from bandits." The man had long, black hair with his face almond like. Like a set tan which had not yet gone away.

'Possible use of tijutsu involving legs as main attack leaving hands free to perform a jutsu. Clever'. Orochimaru thought. He had finished his analysis and had formed a strategy, should this be a trap. There was still, this mist in the air, which troubled him, to a slight degree.

All this happened with a minute, which made Orochimaru frown inside for taking so long to come up with one on the fly. Was he really tired?

"It didn't go so well, and had to perform a jutsu to wipe his memory." Orochimaru stilled as he looked at his eyes. Un-naturally green and yet, his whole composure screamed of casual confidence. "And so, we thought of this. Congratulations! You are the first subject for it."

'You are the first subject for it.' Orochimaru had a sudden flashback, when he too, said something like this; in a very different situation, in a very different tone.

"From Hidden Leaf Village!" His voice was incredulous, and felt slightly off. Like he was a foreigner in this land. "A missing ninja. Hmmm. Your name?" The man didn't look up, continuing to look into the paper. Orochimaru was a little affronted that this guy hadn't even heard about him, the legendary Sanin, and looked at him like he was nobody.

Actually, that could work to his advantage, he thought, and thinking about a fake one quickly. But then, curiosity got the better of him and he wondered, if he would recognize the name.

"Orochimaru." He said quietly. Trying to present a fearful persona.

"Hari!" He replied back. Orochimaru fell down anime style, and got back up quickly. Now, he really was curious about the whole thing. And a bit indignant too!

"Let me give you a brief introduction about the Village." Hari said seeing that this guy was unsure about staying here. "You can always leave if you don't want to, no questions asked. There isn't any restriction of going in and out of village and you certainly don't need my permission on it. This isn't like any village you come from." Hari gave him a look and Orochimaru understood it perfectly.

You should be able to handle whatever shit you stirred up.

"You are free to do what you want to do, keeping in mind the others have as much right to do the same. There is but one rule." His voice hardened. "Do not gather heat when you are out of the village and don't come back with people hot on your trail. This place is meant to be a safe haven for other ninjas as well. If you have a problem with any ninjas, you are free to take it to the arena to settle them with fists and blood."

"And you are the Village leader?" Kukuku… Orochimaru laughed inside.

"If by that, you mean I formed it. Yes. Food, water and other amenities aren't free, unlike in the other nations." For a ninja, they were given a monthly stipend, which included a lodging quarters and money for food and other things."

"A Sanin. What is that rank?" Orochimaru got up, again from falling down anime style; looking at him with an incredulous expression. He hadn't heard about the legendary fight with Hanzo the Salamander?! And he explained it to him. He knew about the Hanzo, and other various heads of the Village but not of the famous ninjas inside.

"So basically, a level up from Jonin." Harry remarked, blowing air between his lips and asked, "What did you do to piss of Hokage?" Hari said in his unique 'Harry Potter' way.

"Jutsu experimentation." Orochimaru replied innocently.

"Really?" Harry blinked, not expecting that answer. "Well, we do experiment with jutsus and try and create as many as possible." He said honestly.

"It was more of a forbidden research types really." Kukuku, Orochimaru said conversationally, watching his reaction keenly.

"Ah! Immortality or raising the dead?" Harry said with a twisted expression.

"Both." Orochimaru said growing alert. The fog hadn't been displaced yet, so there was still a chance of attack.

"Well, none of the ninjas are interested in that sort of thing." Harry said scratching his chin. He hadn't shaved for a while which gave him a roughish look, having small dark patch starting from jaw-bone till his chin. "However, what jutsus you research in your free time is none of our business. Make sure none of other people get hurt."

'Kukuku', Orochimaru thought. 'If only you knew Hari. The things I do… The things. I. Do.'

"That's enough Gonem." Hari said out loud. "That was very well done!" Harry complimented, turning to Orochimaru. "He had a problem with his chakra points or tenkutsu or whatever you people call it. I had to perform an experimental surgery." He said out quickly and then extended his arms.

"Well, welcome to the Village, Orochimaru." The fog disappeared, giving him a clear view of the village. It was good enough. Orochimaru thought, not amazed or upset. He really was prepared to crash for the night be it a simple hut or an elegant place. He would figure out this Hari guy and move on, probably.


	2. Chapter 2

Wow! The response is amazing! Close to a hundred in stats, just on the first chapter! Thanks to all of you who reviewed. I'd like to point out that I appreciate all the reviews I'll only respond to the people who have questions. But that does not in ANY WAY that I do not value your feedback for the same. This story has a bit crack-ish tone to it so please do not take this story too seriously.

* * *

Orochimaru roamed around the village letting his eyes absorb images of this paradoxical place. There were people living, chatting amicably, going around without a care in the world! He wouldn't dare to dismiss all of them, considering all of them were ninjas.

It was this fact that compounded the mystery of this place more. It was essential that there be civilians in any particular village but this village seemed to have a very _very_ small amount of them. Not to mention the ninjas of various villages together in one place. It was a recipe for a disaster.

But.

But…

This place was still standing. And the fact that he, Orochimaru who considered himself a scientist was not able to decipher this social structure made it very hard for him to admit that perhaps, _perhaps_ there were things in the world that he might not understand.

He took a right angrily, and stopped. In bold letters there were three letters in kanji spelled Jimu (Gym).

'What the hell is that?' He stared narrowing his eye slits. He pushed the glass door and felt a blast of cold air hit him in the face. It was all but empty. At a distance, he could see a lone man working out lifting something.

The man's posture shifted sensing some presence behind him. Orochimaru just stared at the man looking at the menial task of lifting some metal block and putting it down.

"You going to stand there all day or you actually want something, manuke!" The man said, putting the weights down but not turning around.

"Funny." Orochimaru said in a dry tone. "Tell me, are those muscles of yours help you be a better ninja?" It wasn't the words Orochimaru used to rile people up. You could say it was his innate talent of how he'd speak that made people want to punch his face very, very hard.

"Oh yeah. You wanna fight!?" The man turned around swinging a blade. There was a sudden increase of bloodlust all around. The blade swung an arc in the air sliding just on Orochimaru's shoulder. There was a clash of metal as Kusanagi had blocked the path of Kubikiribocho. Orochimaru recognized the Decapitator Blade and its owner. There were few who could put out that much killing intent.

"Cute." Orochimaru said to the Swordsman from the Mist Village. A silent battle of might ensued, to see who could make other's blade shift. This went on for a while broken only by a sound of someone clearing their throat.

"Let's just agree that everyone has beautiful swords here, shall we?" Harry said, his hands resting on the hilt of Sword of Gryffindor. "But mine is beautiful of all." He boasted, giving a faint smirk.

Orochimaru watched Hari, performing some parlor trick exaggerating, the movements of the swords making the blade disappear.

"Happy Birthday, Haku!" Harry said making Orochimaru look up. That was some serious hiding skill! But then again, he hadn't really tried finding out who was here.

"An Ice-Cream!" Haku said happily. "Which flavor?" His cute eyes looked at him questioning.

"Not just any Ice-Cream candy! This is what you'd call… a Sundae! Much creamier and less watery!"

Haku opened the box to find dried nuts sprinkled over creamy yellow and brown colored globules. "I… I can't accept this. It's too much, Hari-Sama." He looked sad, reluctant to return this wonderful treat.

"Now, you know you can't return a gift! Haku-Chan!" Haku had given up wearing masks. A Hunter-nin mask wouldn't work here anyways but the ninjas did not like people here wearing masks. It was one of the untold rules here. It reminded people too much of the Black-ops, various villages had back home. This had led Haku to be exceptional in remain in hiding. The list of ninjas able to detect him hiding were getting less as the days passed.

"Don't worry, Hari. We'll split it between us." Zabuza grinned, unashamed.

* * *

"So you're leaving." Orochimaru stopped and looked at the scene unfolding at a distance.

Drama! On the first day in the village? Someone leaving?

Kukuku, a bird chirped at a branch above him. Orochimaru glared at the bird, letting the bird have a taste of his killing intent.

'Copy my signatory style?' He snarled, feeling satisfied watching it drop dead the next moment.

"Yes." The women in question spoke. Orochimaru turned his head. He could see a slashed Hitai-ate of the Hidden Cloud Village. Instantly, a crowd gathered, seeing what Hari would do. They seemed a bit bored, as if, familiar with this routine. All this was news to Orochimaru… It made him wonder if this was a norm whenever someone try to leave. He had quickly established the hierarchy of this village and he was satisfied to find himself at the very top.

He was not a person who had arrogance with the title he had inherited. Infact, none of the Sanin had that. Jiraya would act childish but he would never underestimate any opponent. His sensei had instilled that sense in them a long time ago.

"Goodbye." Orochimaru read the lips, not hearing anything. Orochimaru turned away, not finding anything of interest in the conversation anymore.

'How is this village functioning when this stupid Kage lets its people go?' Orochimaru thought, curiosity burning. He vowed to figure out this village and especially that guy- Hari. It made no sense to him how the village could still function seeing Hari, did not mind people going away. He stopped when others moved towards the gate instead.

"What is he doing?" Orochimaru asked, drawn in by curiosity once again. Did Hunter-Ninja already pounce on her? Everyone knew there were Hunter-Nin just ahead where the boundary of the village ended. It was written in various pamphlets and notices all through the village! He watched Hari looking around and then moving towards the right.

"Hari-sama does this every time someone leaves."

"Oh." Orochimaru's interest piqued looking for more information from the ninja without any head-band.

"Yes. Oh…" The man, paused and Orochimaru looked at his saddened expression and turned towards Hari. Where had the shovel come from? He wondered seeing Hari digging up a small pit. "Hari-sama has the ability to predict the future of anyone who leaves this place. It seems that Kyiko-san will die soon."

"Dig up one grave." Harry said, drawing Orochimaru's attention and everyone else. "For your enemy and one for yourself every time you go to seek revenge."

People lifted up their hands as if to affirm what Hari had said and Orochimaru's burning curiosity was now set ablaze.

Just who was this guy?

"Kukuku." A second bird chirped from above.

* * *

By the end of two weeks, Orochimaru was no close to figure out how this village was still standing. There were tons of ninjas, often Chunin's and mostly Jonin's who became a missing-nin. But the more unusual part of the whole thing was that there were genins as well.

Not just any genins, but boys and girls from Kiri. Who had exotic bloodline! Really, if Hari was more interested or driven, they could easily have a village which rivaled Hidden Rain Village. But this guy was unusually disinterested. He thought it foolish and rather absurd that no one was hunting the village down. He had grown bored and his anticipation wearing thin seeing that no attacks were coming.

The thing which grated his nerves more than anything was the lack of missions! When he inquired about possible missions, he had been directed to farms and helping farmers to grow the crops and feed the cattle. He was a Sanin for Kami's sake and not some lowly Genin! Others didn't seem to care but only grateful of the safe haven he was providing to them.

But he did enjoy the food over there. He supposed this was the reason they enjoyed farming and raising the cattle here. The food was, simply put- delicious. Granted he didn't have much of an appetite now, but the food was alluring; especially the toad roast. Mmmmm, roasted and crunchy on the outside and soft and squishy on the inside. Not to mention warm. Ohhhh….

Orochimaru dismissed that thought, and pursued a similar one. Hari knew things all the time. No matter what precautions he took, Hari always, _always knew. _

He had dug a small pond in his basement, just to grow toads and frogs. His mud-clones were digging up tunnels beneath the whole town. He went as far as to dig them by hand, when Hari gave him air vents as a house-warming gift. How Hari knew about it too, well, Orochimaru didn't know which made him all the more paranoid.

To him, Hari was like Danzo. That crippled fool knew everything happening around the village but at the same time, Hari was very unlike him as well. He looked so laid back, so casual as if, he did not care for the Village. Orochimaru knew this to be not true since he had seen Hari perform various tasks for the people inside the Village.

This dichotomy in Hari had him most puzzled. Orochimaru could not figure this out and after exhausting all means of subtlety he had to employ some straight methods.

As straight as a snake could be.

* * *

"That was amazing work, Hari-san." Orochimaru said politely, words honeyed in praise. That honeyed words had got him to atleast observe the whole process and Hari too. He saw a lot of Kabuto in Hari, seeing the precision and the dedication he, Hari could muster up to heal his patients. There was a calm, emotionless mask when he was at work. The movements were precise and Hari was wholly focused on the task.

"Ah! But I could make this potion better with your help. Due this this, Narimu's bones will be stronger than ever and have the ability to infuse more chakra!" Orochimaru gave a smile, relieved that the process was successful. A strenuous bout with other Jonins had resulted in having his bones crushed and needed to be replaced. Normally, this meant an end of ninja's carrier but here, Narimu would come out stronger than ever.

Really, Orochimaru knew which concoctions would not work and he gave it to Hari, to see his analysis and other remedies he would employ. The resultant discussion that had ensued made Orochimaru hang on to every world out of Hari's mouth. He had asked about experimentation and Hari had given a detailed report of how one should go about doing it. There was no squeamish response but a professional and a scientific one. That drew Orochimaru in faster than he could yell 'Kuchiyose'. He laid down a scientific path, beginning from what he hoped to achieve and how to go about doing it.

"It's all in the blood." Hari had said, "Whatever you want to do, experimentation on, you should first do on the blood. Be it chakra nature, or just bizzare chemicals…err… things you want to add in it. Then you should proceed with various animals, the ones who has a D.N.A strand as close to ours."

"It's just understanding the nature and working with it." Hari replied back, cutting up an apple and taking off his surgery coat.

"Hai. It is interesting how nature has answers to most of the problems." Orochimaru said, quietly, eating a cucumber. "Research in it is most promising. Alas, one lifetime is not enough to uncover all the secrets of nature." He was truly sad about it.

"Everything in nature dies." Hari remarked casually. "But, it is a state, just like living. Death does not mean end, just inversion of life. The seed in the cycle continues, again and again." Hari said, throwing seeds out of his window.

'An inversion of life.' Orochimaru blinked and met Hari's eyes. There was a knowing glint in it and Orochimaru had an inkling what Hari was leading him to. Orochimaru could feel that this was where he would be able to glean answers regarding his quest of immortality.

* * *

"A diligent worker, that one." Harry said, looking at Orochimaru go. There was fair amount of nostalgia in his tone even if this person did remind him of Voldemort. He had many friends throughout his long, exhausting life but he never forgot his first friends and acquaintances. "At least I'll have company if he does indeed find immortality."

He truly did miss cultivating relations only to be broken off by them dying.

* * *

A/N: There used to be a page break function on the formatting bar but now there isn't. After re-formatting, it appeared once again! *sigh* Leave a review on your way out! Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks for all the reviews! I'm stoked!

* * *

A figure glided over branches, occasionally pushing chakra in one of them to acquire a momentary speed boost, leaving behind several tiny white particles.

"No appreciation of art, un!" He mumbled out and formed a hand-sign. The area behind exploded in multitude of colors and the concussive force of blast helped him propel further. This used to cheer him up, but this time it filled him with more melancholy than before.

They didn't respect his art! His glorious art, showing him wonders which lasted just a second, dissipating instantaneously. But that was all he needed to appreciate. Beautiful things in life didn't exist for long, but in that one moment, he could savor it as long as he wanted it.

But his own village didn't respect his art. He wouldn't admit he had gone overboard with it. Granted he hadn't really learnt to control the amount of devastation with his intelligent animal bombs, but still; they didn't appreciate his art! Now they knew the destructive power of his jutsu but, they didn't have his support anymore.

His slashed hitate was proof of this.

He neared some bizarre opening and saw hundreds of hunter-nin's. They saw the slashed headband and they all moved at the same time. As if, they all had one common objective.

His feet reached the soft ground and in an instant he replaced himself with a clone. Years of expertise came into play, as he did it just in time for his clone to be pierced with all sorts of weapons. Kunai, shuriken, arrows, spears and many more.

All of them dug deep inside him and he collapsed on the ground. His miniature animals flew into air, like a puff of powder in the air as he visibly strained to get up again. But it was of no use. They were onto his clone, stepping closer and a minute later, the area exploded.

Deidara climbed above the huge crater, infinitely pleased at his art savoring the devastation all around. A spear whizzed by his head and he turned around, shocked being unable to sense it. He turned his head again when he heard a body hitting the ground and looking back at the people clapping.

Another man held up a spear, breaking into a run. This time he couldn't even see the spear sailing pass going at a distance. Sure enough, another body hit the ground.

There were more of them out now and Deidara could see all their slashed hitate.

"Well." He thought, "This is interesting."

* * *

Diedara made it his mission to make the leader of this village understand the beauty of his art. If he couldn't appreciate it, he would go elsewhere. And so, he began preaching about his hard work. When he was finished, he looked expectantly, waiting for some reaction.

Harry got up, amused at the capability of the people in this world. The guy had mouth on his palms! The new creations in this world would never cease to amaze him. But, he remembered a time back then, when Uncle Vernon used to watch World War two documentaries all the while threatening him to send him to an army camp. Harry wanted to make him see the ultimate weapon his old world had before the arms race had taken a turn for the worse.

Deidara watched this guy, who hadn't spoken a single thing stand up and take out some shiny disc. It made him tense for a moment before something resembling a square-rectangular-ish tongue rolled out swallowing the disc. He watched curiously as the light from a metallic box came to life.

He saw a large expanse of forest like land and saw something dropping down from the sky. In a second, there was a huge explosion like an orange bubble, a huge mushroom encompassing the whole sky. Deidara shook himself out as he heard Hari's voice.

"They say the bomb was like a second sun, shining till the next day. People couldn't differentiate between which one was real and which wasn't."

"Such beauty." The voice came out as a whisper. Deidara was lost in it. His heart stilled for a moment as he continued looking at it, not a single muscle in his body was moving. His eyes fixated on the explosion and the consequent sun it formed in the sky. An explosion that lasted for the whole day.

"Ofcourse I wasn't born at that time but it people continued talking about it till ages to come."

"How?" Diedara asked, still entranced by the explosion. He hadn't even figured out how to make the sweet light of explosion last even a second.

"That is something you'll have to find it for yourself." Hari's green eyes connected with brown. "You are free to stay here as long as you like and perfect your art. Make sure none of the people in the village gets killed due to your explosions."

Deidara nodded dumbly and walked out. He had a new goal now, to make the beauty of the explosion radiant like the sun for the world to see!

* * *

A group of hunter ninjas came walking, intent to hash out the details of their capture. The whole village came surging forward, with plethora of weapons in their hands. Before the situation could dissolve in utter chaos, Hari flashed forward to meet the group.

"Well, what do you want, kid?" His accent took a southern twist. His words were somewhat blurred by the huge cigar in his mouth.

"We are here to capture Zabuza of the Hidden Mist Village. We would like to complete our mission. There doesn't need to be any escalation between our two villages." Harry could tell that the hunter squads were newl. The previous ones had met an unfortunate fate, a while back.

"Well, you see. There's just one tinny minny problem with that." Hari said casually, lighting the cigar. "You see that-" He said, pointing the banner. "Says its missing ninja village. That means there are tons of missing ninjas that have come to seek shelter. Now if I were to give you permission, that would give the wrong kind of signal to the rest of the folks up there, wouldn't it?"

"Preventing us from doing our mission will lead to conflict and even war." The leader cautioned.

"So it can." Harry said casually, puffing out smoke. "You cross that line again and we'll kill you. Do not come back. Unless they want to come back willingly, they can do whatever the hell they want." Harry paused, "Do you want to go back, Zabuza?"

"Hell no!" Zabuza had found heaven, or his kind of hell, whichever way you want to look at it. This place quenched his battle lust and then some more. Heck, in just two months felt stronger than ever. There was no way he was going back to that shithole.

The leader of hunter squad watched the leader turn his back on them and he chose to attack at the very moment. Harry did nothing but to take another puff while the five man squad was cut down by invisible blades, while he continued to walk back on the village.

That very night, the bounty on his head tripled.

* * *

Ommake:

Haku blinked owlishly, wondering how in this world he had created solid ice tentacles which moved around flexibly. On a second thought, he knew exactly how he had done it. Its just that, he did not think it was possible to do something like this or if he could do it again.

The water inside the icy tentacles could bend the ice, cracking it. Only, Haku quickly froze it making it seem that the tentacles made of ice were flexible. But he couldn't comprehend whatever he might do with this tentacles. The exercise was only meant for him to have greater control over the elements.

This was an important skill Haku had acquired and Zabuza was his teacher. Haku was of two minds what to do about this. He didn't feel confident if he could recreate this thing again. And so he poked him with the tentacle…

"Zabuza-San." Haku called and when Zabuza didn't respond and remained sleeping Haku stepped closer to wake him up. Just as he was able to wake him he paused. Momochi Zabuza had a lethal streak to him and Haku knew better to interrupt his sleep.

Zabuza woke up with a cry, feeling the intense cold in the shoulders. Two things happened quickly for anyone to do anything about it. Instinctively, Zabuza tried to fling kunai at the perceived threat and Haku's tentacles coiled up around arms and legs effectively skewing the aim.

"Ohh." Haku said, looking at one use of ice tentacles he'd created.

"What are you doing Haku?" Zabuza growled looking at the tentacles holding him still.

"Erm…" Haku ducked his head, not knowing how to explain what he'd found out.

Zabuza shook off the tentacles once Haku had somehow relaxed its grip. The duo just stood there for a while, Zabuza not knowing what to say to his apprentice. Deciding it was too early in the day to deal with shit, he just chose to walk away.

It was weird enough already, with Haku looking like a girl.

* * *

A/N: Things will pick up from the next chapter and the plot will move forwards once Itachi graces the Village with his presence! Let me know what you thought of the story!


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Hello there! Thanks for the wonderful reviews. Here's more as you have requested!

* * *

"Please Mister! Give us something to eat!" The hoard of children were gathered on the front gate of the village. Several ninjas were gathered, curiously watching what the leader would do. No one could really tell anymore what he would, considering a huge bounty on his head.

His village was situated in the exact opposite direction of Hidden Rain village and that so, they too, had the three big nations on their border. The only difference was that Rain Village had Stone while they had Mist.

The three big nations, however hadn't launched an attack on the village but chose to increase the bounty on Harry's head. They knew they had very high level of missing ninjas among them and no one was willing to risk a full scale invasion against them. With the scars of the third great shinobi war, their strengths were depleted and this kind of invasion would weaken their position amongst the other.

But many speculated that sooner or later someone in some big country would snap and take decisive action. They had already encountered gurrilla type invasion tactics from many ninja squads but they all were soundly taken down. Just the previous day, Hari, with a group of Jounin's had all but destroyed the landscape of the surrounding area, making whatever strengths of Hunter ninja present there, scatter.

"All right! Come on in." Hari said with a big smile. He signaled the kitchen staff and soon, all the small table was laid out with all kinds of bakery items. Harry watched with a keen eye as the kids devoured the food until small grains were all that was left behind.

"Please Mister! Can we stay? Please! Please! Pleeaaaseee?" Their puppy-eyed-no-jutsu was very effective.

"Alright! You can stay." Hari said, taking a sigh bowing down to the puppy looks thrown in. "However." He spun quickly, bashing two boys' heads against the third. "You three are going back to Konoha!"

Orochimaru looked up, curious at the sudden movement.

As Hari dragged them out, with much less trouble than someone trying to infiltrate a village would. "Get out of here, you Danzo's piece of SHIT!" Hari yelled, giving a firm kick to the buttocks. Orochimaru watched him fly way, crossing over a large trajectory which, he was sure led back to the Hidden Leaf Village. Soon, the other two followed the suit.

Orochimaru grew nostalgic as he recalled a certain blonde haired teammate of his do the exact same thing.

Just when he thought it was over, Hari grabbed something in the thin air which revealed to be a man in a swirly orange mask with a hole in the left eye.

"Tobi is a good boy!" The man said in a child-like voice, fighting against the iron grip.

"Exactly! Good boys go back to their mommy! GET OUT OF HERE YOU FAKE PIECE OF _SHITE!"_ And that was that.

"Ya'll have guts I'll give you that." Harry said calmly and walked back to dinner table. Ninjas who had stopped eating were just beginning to take another bite when they stopped again. "Trying to pull fake ass shit on me. Ain't nobody falling for distrust around here! Yeah! I'm taking to you Azoba, code name Jackal of the Leaf Village!"

"No. No…" Harry gestured. "There will be no fighting at the table. The food is prepared in good faith. Please enjoy it before it gets cold. I assure you that it isn't poisoned. You _will_ eat the food before you go back to your Hokage. You ain't foolin' anyone too, Hosuka. Tell Jiraya that Orochi says hi."

Orochimaru's eyes glinted ominously at the girl. What he wouldn't give for her to be laid on a hard bed before her. Only he, Orochimaru was capable of not seeing the innuendo in it.

"The rest of you will be out of this village after the dinner else it's open season on all of you. Can't control all these blood thirsty monsters, all the time." Harry gestured at the missing-ninjas at the table. The ninjas waited expectedly for the two infiltrators to take a bite and the two did; unwillingly. It was excruciating to watch two minutes go by, where, the two chewed the food with greatest deliberation and comically gulped down food.

The ninjas presumed eating as if there was nothing going on at the table anymore. Just like that noises flowed through the table once again. Although, none of them missed the pointed glance everyone had in the two's direction every now and then.

"Ah!" Harry gave a contented sigh along with many others. "I do hope you have a bit of room for some deserts. Kirikyo!"

"Yes, Hari-Sama. Here they are!"

"Hmm. We are two short. Kirikyo, you didn't bring deserts for our honored guests?" Harry asked as he passed the vanilla ice-cream cups to all.

"It's okay. We'll just leave." Hosuka tittered with fake calmness.

"Oh. No…" Harry gestured grandiosely. "We wouldn't want to be appear less hospitable now, would we?" There were sniggers from all around.

"What would the Hokage say about us, then?" Orochimaru said in a sickly sweet voice. There were murmurings of agreement from all around.

"You could give up allegiance to your village leader. Hari-Sama would accept you forgiving your past transgressions." That was Norimo. He was a bit of fanatic from the Sand Village.

"No, no. We shouldn't force anyone to join our village." Harry said quickly seeing the two about to speak out. "In the future, should you want a change of scenery, our doors will always be open to you all." Harry said grabbing the two pumpkin spiced ice-cream for them. "Now, eat up. I wouldn't want you to drop _dead_ from exertion before you go back to your village." He said patronizingly.

The ninjas did exactly that, seeing there was no choice in the matter and dying with their stomachs full and a pleasant poison to go with seem better than the alternative. Everyone knew of the brutality that the missing ninjas could inflict.

It was ironic that when they did the same it was justice but that was a thought for another time. It was five people that left the village in hurry after Harry had given a letter to be handed over to Hokage.

* * *

Danzo squinted his one eye as he was briefed about their mission. It wasn't right to call it a mission anymore, more like, an unpleasant revelation. Was it co-incidence that the three of their ROOT ninjas had crashed in that exact hole, which incidentally led to one of his main routes to his office? Now, he had to deal with this mess.

"Seal all the documents and destroy this facility."

* * *

The third Hokage was busy going through many reports concerning his village when the infiltration group arrived well and sound to the village.

An Anbu member, opened the scroll to check for any explosives before handing it over to their leader. Hiruzen's eyes grew wide as he read the message.

Next time I'll kill them.

* * *

Tobi, also known as Obito didn't wait to find out where he was headed as in between he teleported out and directly to his base. He'd never been as humiliated in his life as he was now. The quality of potential recruits were down to a single digit, and then this Hari guy had to go and take all the good ones.

It was sad really. If Obito hadn't teleported out, he could've known that the place he was heading was suspiciously in the direction of his own base.

"I have someone you need to take care of." Tobi, straightened his posture and looked as imposing as he could.

"For fuck's sake spill it out man! I ain't got all day to listen to your shitty commands!"

* * *

Ommake:

Haku ducked a swipe of sword and raised his icy tentacles, much like wolverine trying to punch and pierce Zabuza with it. He had become exceptional incorporating his new found Jutsu in battle. Zabuza channeled chakra in his blade making it slick, letting the paw shaped ice skid across his blade. The resulting sound made both the combatants pause.

It was distinct and aggressive. It had that metallic tinge to it that he hadn't ever heard before. Zabuza motioned Haku to repeat the attack and the area filled with such sounds and it quickly drew the crowd in.

Haku looked around to see the people gathered, making him self-conscious. It was his instinctive nature to remain hidden and being looked on by so many people was a terrifying prospect. Zabuza was busy figuring out what was happening with this clash of Jutsus and if, he could take advantage to the sound produced to throw his opponents off.

Because quite frankly that sound made his blood pump faster!

"That was awesome, Zabuza-San!" Zabuza's head turned to the sound of clapping, seeing a grown man from Mist Village.

"Yeah! Do it again!" That statement was followed by a lot of affirmations.

A tick slowly developed behind Zabuza's head and the area flooded with murderous killing intent.

"If you don't leave this place within the next five seconds, I'm making a necklace of your bloody heads." He said pleasantly like he was talking about the weather and how pleasant the sun was to feel on his face.

"I don't think I'd listen to such sounds again in my life." Harry said, walking into the small forest clearing letting the last of the ninjas to disperse. He always took his time, not impatient anymore considering his immortality.

"Do it again, Haku-Chan." Harry said. He watched their moves in action and scratched his chin. "Form five long, thin strands of that and put it in here." Harry said, pulling out a perfect wooden case of electric guitar from his coat. Next he commanded Zabuza to brush his sword against the strings. Harry changed his grip on the upper portion while Zabuza continued to brush down looking intensely at Harry's fingers moving sideways and down on top portion of this long wooden thing.

"This is beautiful." Zabuza admitted listening to a riff of the song 'Highway to Hell'. Haku and Harry looked amazed, seeing Zabuza mesmerized. The angry melody soothed his blackened soul.

* * *

A/N: I'm on a three month hiatus. So the next chapter is probably going to be in Jan. I have most of the story written already but needs some fine tweaking! Let me know what you thought of this chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Just as promised. A new chapter.

* * *

"He goes by the name of Hari, and is over here." He pointed on the map. "You are in luck, Kakuzu. There are many bounties you can collect from there and as a show of faith, you can go collect them all. I just want him dead."

"Don't worry, Tobi! That fucker will be gutted, chopped and fried dry! Jashin-sama shall be pleased!" Hidan said out loud.

"It shall be done." Kakuzu said, his green eyes lingering on the map of that man's location.

* * *

Harry sensed his furthermost ward break, and he knew the two ninjas walking towards his village were no ordinary ones. He got up, dawning his basilisk armour and various other protective equipment. The ruins flared all across his clothes, signifying a battle ready state and then he, casually walked out.

"Would you be willing to use the battle arena for this challenge?" Harry said courteously, meeting the two shinobi just outside the main gate. Hidan put down his odd-looking blade, in response. Kakuzu didn't say anything and chose to look back at the large crowd gathered pinning down faces with names he could remember from the bingo book. He was looking forward to collect all of these heads.

"I see." Harry muttered going through a series of seals and slamming down hands on the muddy ground.

"Let me deal with this heathen, Kakuzu! Although it's not been that long, Jashin-sama would appreciate another sacrifice."

Kakazu never engaged an enemy without figuring out his weakness. Hidan did most of the ground work and then if Hidan was not incapicated, he would move in to finish off his enemy. He already had an inkling to one elemental affinity of this guy, Hari, seeing a wall of stone rose up, surrounding them and Kakuzu began thinking of a counter strategy while Hidan engaged Hari. It had always been this way. Immortal Hidan taking beatings that no ordinary shinobi could and in the process revealing the strengths and weakness of their opponent.

It had worked out in the past, and Kakazu had no reason to see that strategy fail this time.

The battle started with minor clashes, with Hidan using his heavy two curved blades to try and bash it in Hari. Harry dodged all the attacks, while taking note of his opponent being able to summon his weapon back easily via a steel rope. Hari had to look out for the damage attacks from above, especially when the re-summoned blade would come crashing down on him from above trying to split him in two pieces.

Other times, Harry parried blow for blow with his long blade, the sword of Gryffindor. It was clear that that the other guy who was calmly accessing his moves was the real threat. He hadn't heard of these guys before and judging from their blank looks, they were undaunted by the large number of missing nin's behind the arena wall, but Harry could tell that they were the real deal.

The strikes became quicker and deadlier. Hidan snarled many times not being able to get a clean hit or a slash across his opponent. Harry, countering his moves and occasionally managing to get hit him in return, evident from the slashes on their dress.

Harry then found Hidan licking his blade and he wondered why he was doing it so. It didn't make any sense. He felt a stinging sensation on his biceps and found it bleeding from a cut.

Hidan's tongue rolled out and licked the blade appreciatively. There was a victorious smirk on his face which made Harry frown. His blood should've killed him, but it hadn't. It was then Harry saw a small circle of blood on which Hidan stood. The triangle inscribed in it was the opposite of his deathly hallow version.

"Now we share the glorious pain together!" Hidan laughed out as his body became black, like a poor Halloween costume. White bones were visible throughout his body over the black outline. Next thing, took out a baton, sharp and pointy at one end and stabbed himself in the heart.

Harry realized instantly what had happened. Hidan had deliberately downplayed his ability so that he could come in closer while he manage to nick him with that odd blade of his. He also realized what this ritual was- A blood bind ritual. He had seen it enough times to know what this was and how to counter it. He went through fake hand seals and slammed his hand on the ground, muttering a counter-curse.

Hidan looked perplexed when, after five minutes Hari was looking at him with the same calm expression. "The only pain I'm feeling is looking at your sorry state, mate." Harry remarked casually. There was an instantaneous change on Hidan's expression. He felt more enraged than ever and a little fearful.

Harry vanished instantly and appeared at the other end of the field. His blade only had a drop of blood on its edge, a testament of speed and sharpness. The head slid down, from the upward slant cut to the ground. There was a minute of silence all around before Hidan started yelling.

"Kakuzu! Patch me up here right now! I'm gonna show this fucker not to mess with Jashin-sama's ritual! Kakuzu? Kakazu! KAKAZU!" The head, wobbled in its place, only able see to the ground, very closely.

Kakazu slowly moved forward, but Harry positioned his sword, ready for an attack. Quicker than Harry could see, Kakazu released a torrent of water, charged with lightning. Harry had no other choice but to create a shield around him, protecting from the humongous tidal wave.

The water calmed down, sinking in the ground and Harry could see the damage on the stone wall he had erected. The translucent orb surrounding Harry vanished as he straightened, narrowing his eyes as he looked at this Kakuzu fellow.

Kakuzu didn't show his disappointment but changed his hearts and fired a fire-wind combo. When that didn't work out, he tried earth element techniques mixed with different elements in sequence.

"That's all you got?" Harry stood calmly. The field was a mixture of spikes, uneven terrain and cracks that ran deep in the earth. Kakuzu gave a thin smile, and charged forward for a close distance combat. The two clashed repeatedly neither of them giving an inch. Kakuzu, noticing the prowess of his opponent, didn't hold back.

Harry was having a rough time dealing with the assault and combating the ninjutsu sent his way. This curious mixture of close combat fighting and use of ninjutsu was a reminiscent of his own style but he had to admit- Kakuzu was better at it than him.

Harry muttered an impediment curse, which froze Kakuzu momentarily in the place. It was all the time Harry had needed and rammed the sword straight into his chest. The next moment, Kakuzu's body had extending into several separate body parts connected via strong thread-like material.

Two things happened simultaneously. Kakazu's hearts changed its position; replacing the 'dead' wind element heart with a fire elemental one. The threads form his body engulfed Harry in an instant making him impossible to move from his place.

"You were a tough opponent, I have to admit." Kakazu said, looking at his captured foe. "It's been a long time since someone was able to kill one of my hearts. Too bad yours you have an earth elemental affinity and I require to replenish my wind elemental affinity one. No matter-" Kakaku was talking to himself now, "There will be someone in this village with wind affinity, they shall suffice for the moment."

Kakazu looked calmly as the threads lengthened and looked menacingly at their prey, ready to dismember him at any moment.

"So that's how you escaped my attack." Harry remarked. Early on, Harry had discovered this weird tendency of almost all ninjas to brag and give out details about their 'jutsus' and he hoped, Kakazu was no different.

"Since you are about to die, I shall tell you my secret." Kakuzu remarked and began telling how he was very old and met young 'punks' like him all the time. He said how he had hearts to spare, one, for every elemental affinity.

"Huh. Interesting." Harry remarked. Invisible blades tore through the threads and Harry was back on his feet. Kakuzu, angry at sudden turn of events, launched individual hearts at him with the intent to kill.

Black ghostly apparition of various shape and sizes morphed around Harry trying to overwhelm and kill him. Harry had no other option but to rely on his magic and fire out near invisible beams of light melting them while stabbing piece of white mask as quickly as possible.

His green eyes bore into the green ones of Kakuzu and Kakazu knew that he was done for.

* * *

"That was an interesting fight Hari." Orochimaru remarked. Like everyone else, he too was watching this fight with interest. Various schemes danced in his mind as he thought of every outcome. But the one he was hoping for didn't come. Hari, had yet again come out of it unharmed. Really now, was it so hard to a man to just accept death and die? He had to wonder.

Every now and then, Orochimaru would fight against Hari, to see who would come out on top and every time he would fail. No one dared to make a mockery out of him because he had beaten everyone and was the second strongest in the entire village. Plus his persona scared everyone to remain silent and not say anything funny about him. Not that Harry took any fight seriously. For him, it was that battle rush that mattered.

'Decide what you want do first Orochimaru. Do you want to dedicate your life to master every jutsu or want to be the strongest ninja in the whole world? Or do you want to discover the secrets of immortality? Your aspirations are divided and until you decide one or the other you will never truly move forward.' Hari would remark this at the end of each battle and Orochimaru had to agree to his assessment. Not every jutsu that Orochimaru learnt was helpful in defeating Hari. Some of them were even defeated by Chunins of this village.

"Hmm… Yes. They were tough opponents. Hidan, was it…?" Hari turned back, a question on his face.

"Hidan and Kakazu." Orochimaru replied.

"Hidan is still alive and I think immortal." Orochimaru stilled when he heard Hari. 'Was this guy serious?' "You might want to… ah… stitch him back together to discover his immortality secret. That guy is indestructible. I'll take this Kakazu's head to cash in the bounty."

"Where is Hidan?" Orochimaru asked carefully. He didn't want to seem too excited at this amazing prospect.

"Broken over this whole area, I'd wager. His face is somewhere deep down. You'll have to dig him up, I'm afraid." Hari said as he walked away.

* * *

Just as Tobi aka fake Madara Uchiha had sent two of his best men, so did Danzo. Well, not technically. He did a bunch of missions in the neighbouring country and pinned it all on that particular village. The result was not pretty. Hari had to leave his favorite seat repeatedly, in the same day to confront a bunch of angry Village leaders and Damiyos of small and big country alike. At the end of it, he was tired of the whole thing and began regretting giving complete freedom to the inhabitants of the village. Some details he heard about from them did paint the whole thing in a bad light.

"Yeah. I didn't do any of those." Harry remarked for the nth time during that day. The indignant look on the Leaf's Damiyo's spokesperson's face said it all. He didn't believe one bit of what this man said. To top it off, the look that everyone gave to him- like he was dirt under his shoes. "And even if I did, what you gonna do about it, mate?"

"This is preposterous." His face was now a nice shade of red and the small army behind him grew alert.

"Look! Maybe we did. Maybe we didn't. What you gonna do about it?"  
"Such…! SUCH…! INSOLENCE! THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!" He yelled, at the top of his voice.

"You done now?" Harry said causally, and walked away.

"Kukuku… Was it wise to gode him, Hari-san?" Orochimaru asked.

"No." Harry sighed. "But they really can't do anything about it." Hari sated.

"The Nine-Tails attack _has_ the village crippled still. They will act very cautiously now. You should expect more spies in your village." Orochimaru replied.

"Nine-Tails." Harry said out loud, testing the word in his mouth. "Heh." Harry said sarcastically. People here had a fun way of naming big bad 'thingies' of chakra. "No. I think not. There will be more allegations on the similar vein as I've been hearing all day."

"Murder of Feudal Lord's wife? Attempted kidnaping of children; open attack on a minor village?" Orochimaru remarked, amused.

"Yes." Harry huffed. "Even if Feudal lord has over fifteen wives..." He mumbled.

"This has Danzo's fingerprints all over it. He is the one who holds grudge against anyone gone against him. He was the one who reaped benefits of my research and then had me discovered by my sensei." Orochimaru couldn't help but say this to him. But, to be fair Orochimaru had crossed a line he shouldn't have. But when the subjects lay on the metal bed the distinction between bad and good, our people and their people didn't hold upto his level of moral.

"Well, then. Let's give him the biggest grudge that he can hold." Harry said smiling.

* * *

Ommake:

"This is beautiful." Zabuza admitted listening to a riff of the song 'Highway to Hell'. Haku and Harry looked amazed, seeing Zabuza mesmerized. The angry melody soothed his blackened soul.

"Kirikyo. Call Deidara from the pit. Now." Harry said with a spark of amusement on his face. They had designed a special pit for the Mad-Bomber Deidara when he had 'cratered' a part of land behind the village. They had then encroached that part of land from the Mist Village seeing that it was the weakest link of the big five.

"The next stage to perfect your art is the link of chain reaction." Harry said quietly to the attentive Deidara. Deidara was busy picturing how that would work out. He knew chain reaction but how was it different from what Hari-Sama was saying?

"But in that chain reaction, you have to add…" Harry paused for a dramatic effect. "The Art of Resonance!" The lecture went into much greater detail, explaining various structures and pattern required for a greater effect using the same quantity.

"For you to do so, Deidara; you must use minute quantities of your explosive clay and use them for greater effect. The timing is the key here."

"Un-hun." Deidara got ready, all psyched up.

"Let's start with double base…er…rapid blasts." Harry remarked casually brushing up his slip-up. Sure enough, after a while Deidara had mastered the double base.

"Now we are ready!" Harry said with a glint in his eyes. His band was almost complete!

* * *

A/N: Well, I was able to upload this today, on the ffnet. I may not get to do it so till Feb. R&R!


	6. Chapter 6

A/n: Finally! A chapter with some resemblance of a plot! Sorry for the late update, I... I got lost on the road of life.

*Dodges stones and rotten eggs. Itachi burns the rest with Amaterasu.

For this long wait, here is a chapter with a little extra length. I am writing after a long time so the flow might be a bit choppy.

* * *

"That was an interesting fight Hari." Orochimaru remarked. Like everyone else, he too was watching this fight with interest. Various schemes danced in his mind as he thought of every possible outcome. But the one he was hoping for didn't come. Hari, had yet again, come out of it unharmed. Really now, was it so hard to a man to just accept death and die? He had to wonder.

Every now and then, Orochimaru would fight against Hari, to see who would come out on top and every time he would fail. No one dared to make a mockery out of him because, he had beaten everyone and was the second strongest in the entire village. Plus his persona scared everyone to remain silent and not say anything funny about him.

'Decide what you want do first Orochimaru. Do you want to dedicate your life to master every jutsu or want to be the strongest ninja in the whole world? Or do you want to discover the secrets of immortality? Your aspirations are divided and until you decide one or the other you will never truly move forward.' Hari would remark this at the end of each battle and Orochimaru had to agree to his assessment. Not every jutsu that Orochimaru learnt was helpful in defeating Hari. Some of them were even defeated by Chunins of this village. But Orochimaru learnt that the creative process was to be respected weather or not he liked the end product of his efforts.

"Hmm… Yes. They were tough opponents. Hidan, was it…?" Hari turned back with a question on his face.

"Hidan and Kakazu." Orochimaru replied.

"Hidan is still alive and I think immortal." Orochimaru stilled when he heard Hari. 'Was this guy serious?' "You might want to… ah… stitch him back together to discover his immortality secret. That guy is indestructible. I'll take this Kakazu's head to cash in the bounty."

"Where is Hidan?" Orochimaru asked carefully. He didn't want to seem too excited at this amazing prospect.

"Broken over this whole area, I'd wager. His face is somewhere deep down. You'll have to dig him up, I'm afraid." Hari said as he walked away.

* * *

Just as Tobi aka fake Madara Uchiha had sent two of his best men, so did Danzo. Well, not technically. He did a bunch of missions in the neighboring country and pinned it all on that particular village. The result was not pretty. Hari had to leave his favorite seat repeatedly, in the same day to confront a bunch of angry Village leaders and Damiyos of small and big country alike. At the end of it, he was tired of the whole thing and began regretting giving complete freedom to the inhabitants of the village. Some details he heard about from them did paint the whole thing in a bad light.

"Yeah. I didn't do any of those." Harry remarked for the nth time during that day. The indignant look on the Leaf's Damiyo's spokesperson's face said it all. He didn't believe one bit of what this man said. To top it off, the look that everyone gave to him, him- like he was dirt under his shoes. "And even if I did, what you gonna do about it, mate?"

"This is preposterous." His face was now a nice shade of red and the small army behind him grew alert.

"Look! Maybe we did. Maybe we didn't. What you gonna do about it?"  
"Such…! SUCH…! INSOLENCE! THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!" He yelled, at the top of his voice.

"You done now?" Harry said causally, and walked away.

"Kukuku… Was it wise to gode him, Hari-san?" Orochimaru asked.

"No." Harry sighed. "But they really can't do anything about it." Hari stated.

"The Nine-Tails's attack _has_ the village crippled still. They will act very cautiously now. You should expect more spies in your village." Orochimaru replied.

"Nine-Tails." Harry said out loud, testing the word in his mouth. "Heh." Harry said sarcastically. People here had a fun way of naming big bad 'thingies' of chakra. "No. I think not. There will be more allegations on the similar vein as I've been hearing all day."

"Murder of Feudal Lord's wife? Attempted kidnapping of children; open attack on a minor village?" Orochimaru remarked, amused.

"Yes." Harry huffed. "Even if Feudal lord has over fifteen wives, no, I know of every mission that they undertake and of this I would not approve. And if they did, they wouldn't leave evidence behind and certainly not come back until they don't leave any trail behind."

"This has Danzo's fingerprints all over it. He is the one who holds grudge against anyone gone against him. He was the one who reaped benefits of my research and then had me discovered by my sensei." Orochimaru couldn't help but say this to him. But, to be fair Orochimaru had crossed a line he shouldn't have. But when the subjects lay on the metal bed the distinction between bad and good, our people and their people didn't hold up to his level of morals.

"Well, then. Let's give him the biggest grudge that he can hold." Harry said smiling.

Within few weeks, the big five nations received a package containing a child-ninja and a paper containing the unlocking procedures of a particular seal on the said ninja's tongue. The result of this was fun to watch for the both of them.

It turned out that they didn't even require any physical torture. With the emotions of what they had done came rushing out, it took only a bit of emotional manipulation for them to go against their leader and babble about all of their missions.

At the end of the month, Danzo surrendered himself and was promptly executed.

* * *

"That was very easy." Orochimaru remarked, the night when the news broke out to all the other villages. The four Kage had gathered with Hiruzen and a hand-cuffed Danzo. With every sorts of tests to authenticate the identity and the timing of death, they went their separate ways. "I didn't think he would actually die."

"Oh. He isn't dead." Harry chuckled to himself, sharing an inside joke with himself. Orochimaru looked startled at the news. "He now holds the biggest grudge against me. THAT was pretty easy, a thing to do."

"Your sense of fun, confuses me greatly, Hari-san." Orochimaru remarked, seeing his expression.

"And I am confused at your sense of dress, Orochi." Hari remarked. Really, who dyes a large purple cloth-string, shaped like a butterfly behind one's back.

"Touché"

* * *

At the place of gathering of the five kage. The Danzo's body had been disintegrated against the infamous particle technique. There was, simply put, nothing left behind.

"I request a private audience with the four of you." The Rai-kage said. The other four looked at their respective bodyguards having a private conversation before nodding their heads. The shinobi guards backed away to give them privacy.

"We differ on many different things but even we see that a certain new village has become a threat to our power." The Rai-kage said, calmly.

"We have lost good shinobi's to that village." Hiruzen said thinking out loud.

"No more than we have." Yagura, the Kage of Hidden Mist village said in a soft, hate filled voice. Tobi grinned manically seeing where this conversation was headed. He wanted to crush that village so bad. This was so much fun, playing other kages like this.

"It is true that they have killed large groups of our ninjas in the hunter division." Onoki said, leader of Hidden Stone Village.

"Then we must agree that we must destroy it together!" Rai-kage said loudly, hitting his fists hard. The minor tremor alerted the shinobis and they all gathered instantly at their leader's side.

"DONOT VIOLATE THE PRIVATE MEETING, C!" Rai-kage shouted. Other leaders gave nods, signaling retreat.

"I, leader of Hidden Stone Village agree to this offer my support in exterminating that village."

"I, leader of Hidden Mist Village agree to this offer my support in exterminating the missing ninjas."

"I, leader of Hidden Sand Village agree to this offer my support in exterminating that village."

"I, leader of Hidden Leaf Village agree to this offer my support as well." Hiruzen said, reluctantly. Things were already worsening back home, with Uchiha's but seeing the four Kage's give their support, he had to agree. If Yagura could offer support in the midst of Civil War, then he could too.

* * *

"…And so, we must really utilize the funds we have to create a respectable village. We already have a huge clientele list but if you would authorize their entry inside the village, we could receive a varied amount of contracts." Orochimaru said, sitting inside the office, conversing with Hari.

"My decision won't change, Orochimaru. This village was set up with an idea of safe haven for all the missing ninja's and I won't change that. As stated on the first day, they are welcome to take on individual contracts of their own choosing. But the consequences of their actions shall not be felt by the people inside the village." Harry remarked back, not budging from the point.

"But there must be something better you could do in that regard. Already…" A knock on the door interrupted the passion-fueled monologue of Orochimaru.

"We shall discuss this later." Harry said, letting grumbling Orochimaru out.

* * *

"Hari-San" A group of children came rushing forward. "We can't find Matseda-Sama!"

"Hmm. When did you last see him?" Harry said, waving his wand from his other hand. Matseda was a chunin who took care of the little children and farmed the fields. After a life of treachery and double roles, he wanted something simple and so, he had decided to come here.

"There was someone, Matseda-Sama talked about bringing to the village." A girl said with her lips trembling.

"And when was this?" Harry asked, seeing the wand spinning around aimlessly.

"Yesterday."

"Alright. I'll see if I can find him." Seeing his wand wasn't giving any input. This would require somewhat of a hands-on approach.

Matseda was unlike the other missing ninjas. Missing ninjas looked alert and ready to flee at a moment's notice and such ingrained habits didn't die out when they had moved to this village. For them, peace was always an illusion. Peace was the silent drumbeat of war and for those who could see, a war was headed their way. But Matseda had really let himself go after he settled in. Taking up the role of a farmer he ploughed the field to grow rice and other whole grains. With what spare time he had after a hard day's work, he spent it with little children.

"Don't worry." Harry said, looking at the relieved eyes of the tiny tots. Well, they were nine-ten years old so not exactly a babe but to an adult, they sure did look little. "I'll go look for him."

"Hmm. Point me Matseda's body." Harry murmured after seeing the wand was unable to find Matseda-kun. Surprisingly, it gave a direction.

* * *

Harry exited the gates and went where his wand pointed. Ahead lay a dark forest cover created by yours truly, Hashirama Senju. He gave a sigh. There was a reason why there were huge signs posted all over the boundary and all across the village that said one thing: "Go ahead, at your own risk!"

He crossed that threshold and at a distance he saw another sign that he remembered planting with Haku and Deidara after they had acquired a portion of land from Village Hidden in the Leaf.

"Seriously man, hunters ahead!"

And at last, "Missing nins will be missed!"

But it looked like Mateseda was in there and so Harry gave a firm shake to the bill-board and went deeper into the woods. The light was barely able to descend down to the ground and what little it did was replaced by shadows of those men in there. There were legions of Hunter-Ninjas and Harry walked down not bothered by them one tiny bit.

"Shush now." Harry said deflecting a kunai headed for the head. The chatter stopped for a moment before a tag detonated in front of him.

He put his pinky finger inside his ear, trying to get the ringing sound stop.

"Come on now, off you go pop!" His shield had done its job as he was unharmed. The ground had taken the burnt of the explosion.

"Shoo!" Harry figured a lot of what he had said would be lost in translation and so, he gestured with hands. This had the opposite effect than he had expected. They were everywhere. On top of the trees and on the ground. Harry had the feeling that there were also beneath his feet, waiting for a perfectly coordinated assault.

"Bravo, dear Hunters! Bravo! It swells my heart to see all five countries working together. I'm sure it's all due to good leadership from up above." Harry said with fake cheer. "I should however test that theory." He said taping his lips softly. "Hmm. Let's see. Stone to Sand, Leaf to Stone, Cloud to Leaf, Mist to Cloud. Ah yes. That should do." Harry said as he clicked his fingers and then they all were gone.

He wondered what would they make out of this but this was probably his best work till date. He smeared some of his blood on the tree bark and the rune-stack glowed green for a moment, signifying its readiness. After all, not everything happened at the flick of a wand.

* * *

"Oh dear." Harry said looking at the burned remains of what looked like two people. Harry scratched his chin, wondering what to do next. Protocol for this type of things was not well defined for missing ninjas. It was a strange place, this world. Harry had always wondered how people could accept death easily here. The pain of parting was not how it should be, Harry had noted way back before he had decided to make this village.

Harry sat down, besides the charred flesh, not bothered one bit and closed his eyes.

"What happened mate?" Harry said, looking at the translucent image of the man.

"Your guess is as good as mine." The man said without any emotion waving at his dead body.

"Ah yes." Harry wondered why did he bother. He had a pretty good guess of what had happened.

"The boy did not make it." There was sadness in the man's tone. Harry made a sound at the back of his throat as he looked up to the full moon.

Suddenly, people started popping beside him from everywhere. When Harry looked down, all the grey silhouettes had one thing in common. All of them stared at him with sharingan-red eyes.

"I guess they did not make it as well." The man said before fading away.

* * *

Itachi Uchia blinked away the tears in his eyes as he rushed past the gates of Konoha. His heart cycled through myriad of emotions, not settling on any one of it. His mind however, knew he had done the right thing. It was a difficult thing to describe what the right thing was, but that was the one thing he could be sure of and it was this.

To save his home or his clan and he had done the right thing. Madara would be here now, any moment to whisk him away to his organization. Now, that he had killed off his clan all that remained was to protect what he had worked hard to save - Sasuke and the Leaf Village.

* * *

"Damn you Tobi- YOU FAKE PIECE OF SHITE!" Harry cursed as he went through a long chain of hand-seals and after a long fifteen minutes, he cast a jutsu. The grass beneath his feet turned white, sucking green out of them while the other part turned jet black. At the end of his jutsu casting, there was a yin-yang symbol on the ground.

Itachi could sense a foreign chakra enter his body and weave the desired genjutsu. A large green arrow appeared over his head and Itachi had to scoff at the attempt. Genjutsu was about subtlety. It was a work of art to weave an intricate illusion to snare the victim, never letting him know till it was too late. It was ridiculous really, as Sharingan swirled to life and negated that genjutsu. The arrow now, changed color to bright red pointing in the exact same direction as the previous one.

Itachi looked down at Madara Uchiha, who was on the ground looking like his strings were cut off. He grew alert, ignoring the arrow above his head. He was tempted to finish this man off for good but he didn't know for sure if it would work. After all, Hashirama was not able to do it, how could he. He barely knew what this man was capable of. Instead, he bent down to shake his shoulder. Just as he thought, his hand went through his body and touched the ground.

Madara's eyes were red and Itachi's shuriken-like sharingan recorded this event, taking in every detail. There was someone out there who had disabled Madara for a short while. While Madara's defenses held for time being, there could be another way to bring him down.

Tobi had a vicious genjutsu cast on him. Now, after countless attempts to dispel the said genjutsu, he didn't know what reality was and what wasn't. In some, his attempt to walk made him sleep while any bodily movement made him extremely nauseated. Some made his right- left and his left - down. There were really a number of permutation and combinations of the said Genjutsu cast on him.

Harry smirked seeing the sharingan user try and dispel the jutsu he cast. Seven different Genjutsu, each having a different component of effect on user, multliplied seven times for the long distance effect. Then it had various recurring elements which made a total of 823543(7^7) number of illusion cast on a person. A powerful combination coupled together.

This was the trick with the kekki genkai of Sharingan. The eye could dispel most illusion but when facing a large number of illusion, most of users gave up after muttering, 'Kai' for the nth time. Itachi continued to do so for five-hundred thousand but then chose to simply follow the arrow's direction. Madara however managed to broke through seven-hundred thousand before collapsing from Chakra exhaustion of using Mangekyo Sharingan.

Night dawned over, but Harry hadn't moved from his place. He gazed upwards, seeing the crows flutter over and then felt the distinct presence of Itachi behind him. Red eyes blazed and in the night, they made a terrifying sight. Harry found a kunai pressed against his neck and the breath of Itachi Uchia on the back of his neck.

Mangekyo Sharingan continued to break through illusions, meanwhile, Harry turned and looked at the strange pointed black iris of the red-eye.

"Welcome, kin-slayer Itachi." Harry said as he dissolved in air. Itachi, a bit surprised but continued his assault once, he got an fix on his location. Strangely, the indicator still pointed in the same direction as Hari stood. Metal clashed against metal and sparks flew as both of them tested each other's ability.

"Remove this petty Genjutsu." Itachi said, in a flat voice.

"Is it that troubling, Kinslayer Itachi? It has done nothing more than bring you to my location." Hari remarked.

Perhaps it was the word Kinslayer that snapped Itachi, making him use the Mangekyo once again. Or, it was the fact that it wasn't true that he could be called a kinslayer since his cute brother was still alive. But, the three tomoe's morphed angrily trapping Hari in the world of Tsukoyomi.

"I control everything in here." Itachi said, starting his monologue. Hari, squinted his eyes, glancing in every direction. Itachi, annoyed morphed his face into a demon and shoving rods in him without a break. Generally, he would draw it out but he no longer had patience or the mental stability he had at that moment.

At the end of it, Hari resembled more or a ball of rod than anything else. Itachi, exahaled noisily and proceded to exit the world of Tsukoyomi. Just as he was about to end this immensely taxing genjutsu, he turned around finding Hari standing besides a man on the post who was no longer recognizable.

"How?" Itachi asked, shocked.

"Interesting. I cannot break this technique but am able to manipulate it." Harry said. "I made you see what you wanted to see and not anything else. How about we make a deal. I tell you how and you let me go." Harry said calmly.

Itachi, normally wouldn't accept anything anyone said to him especially in the world that he controlled on a mere whim. But this was twice this man had fooled him at something he believed no one could. Plus, he was pretty much exhausted. He looked at the extended hand and nodded in return.

"You were already ensnared in my Genjutsu when you implemented your technique."

"That should not matter. Your Genjutsu was simple and small. Itachi said, looking up but not finding the arrow pointed. An effective technique. You compensated it with numbers rather than something elaborate and subtle."

"Yes, good. Good." Harry said his eyes shining bright. When Itachi didn't reply back, Harry continued. "Yes, but Genjutsu, essentially is my chakra affecting your brain. My chakra was already there. I just had to change what you see." Harry said, smiling.

"You cannot change the Genjutsu once you've cast it." Itachi said, intrigued by the idea.

"When you have studied Illusion Arts as long as I have, it is possible." Harry said, speaking truth. Harry had often relied on his illusion to get out of tricky situations. There was no point in going head to head with an opponent. Going head to head so many times had gotten boring. Plus, crafting Illusion had enabled him ending conflict the most non-violent way.

He clicked his fingers and Itachi saw someone else on the pole. Someone, of same height but with different face. A face resembling his little brother.

"I can teach you, if you want." Harry said, smiling.

"No thanks." Itachi said automatically. He had delayed enough. He should get back to Madara soon. "You are a skilled ninja, Hari-san. You should join him. Madara-sama wants to bring world peace." Itachi said to him, seeing what this man would reply.

"Pssh. Give the sales pitch to someone who cares, Kinslayer Itachi." Hari said, brushing him off. "We both know why you did what you did. You think going to that man will buy the Leaf Village some more time?" Harry scoffed. "That you will find out a way to kill him?"

"He is invincible. You have genius on your side but he is stronger. He can kill you. I can kill you." Itachi said, ending the Genjutsu. The two looked at each other silently while the full moon cast light on the surrounding.

"This eyes can do a lot more than cast Jutsu's. These eyes, it sees through everything." Itachi said, daring him to say otherwise. "Good-bye Hari-san." Itachi said walking away.

"I have a Genjutsu on Madara as well. Madara thinks he has ended it but that is not just true. " Hari said and smiled, seeing Itachi stop. "He doesn't know it since it doesn't affect him in any way right now but I just have to wiggle my fingers a bit and he won't be able to get back up."

"After you." Itachi said, letting Hari lead the way

* * *

A/n: I haven't watched Naruto in a while and so I don't have a clear idea on how to write Itachi. There will be some development later on. I hope you enjoyed the plot. It took a while for me to figure out how to include Itachi into the village. Thanks for reading.


	7. Chapter 7

Itachi Uchiha watched with a calm face the workings of the village, in which, he had temporarily decided to stay. He knew about this infamous village of course, and had been given several missions to observe the village from afar. The preparation for an all-out war had begun against this village and Itachi wanted to know more about the infamous leader. The power of their leader was a total mystery and this hole deepened further as he continued to try and uncover it.

The genjutsu mastery he had made Itachi envious. It had managed to fool him, even for a brief moment where he had his deadliest attack- Tsukoyoumi. With Madara not showing his hideous orange face, he was left with little to do but to observe this strange village which had stood up to various attacks from other villages.

"Big brother Hari!" Itachi turned his head to watch Hari interact with a bunch of children. His smile was the kindest Itachi had ever seen and there was a genuine emotion behind it. The happiness in the air and the carefree nature here astounded him to no end. How was it possible that he, Hari wasn't a bad guy in this picture? How was it, that this Hari who was the cause of great unrest, still smile and be so carefree protecting monsters that the missing ninjas were? Itachi approached him as Hari smiled promising them something as the boys ran away.

From what Itachi could make out, one of their caretakers had just died. And Hari was helping them to get back to their daily life.

"You are putting them in the way of danger." Itachi remarked, cool logic dictating his words. He would stay, just to watch Hari fight and him destroy all that he holds dear. Itachi really had a sad outlook on his life after the massacre and the mood swings made things worse. No one could tell that, Itachi being ANBU had exceptional control over his facial expressions.

"People in this world are always in danger. In here, they don't have to worry about being killed for just being at the wrong place at the wrong time." Harry said casually.

"It is the wrong place for them. Even if they are happy and peaceful now, this peace will never last." Itachi said looking up to the sky wondering how did this world came into being. 'This world will never last.'

"Perhaps…" Harry nodded, "But here, in this moment, seeing their paranoia and fear wither is all that matters to me. To be able to give that peace that they deserve, not to have constantly looking over their shoulders is what being human is. I had that ability to give it to them and so I did. What about you, Kin-slayer Itachi? Were you, being an able ninja give someone peace. Peace like this?"

"Peace is an illusion." Itachi said blankly troubled by what Hari was saying. Did his action really ensured peace? Not by a long shot. "Ninja, who isn't cautious all the time, is a dead one." Itachi replied, not finding anything to continue that particular argument.

"On the contrary, most of the ninjas that I've come across have been grateful for what I'm providing to them. Being that cautious, not being able to trust anyone in the world takes a toll on you, a far greater price in my book. Look at you, you're what? Twenty? You look like fifty to me right now. Care to guess what my age is?" Harry said with a smirk. "And who said, the ninjas in this village are not strong. Check out the training facility and you'll be surprised. There are quite a few people who are willing to test against your 'accursed eyes'." Harry said as he walked away.

* * *

For Itachi, the two years passed in relative peace and quiet. it was something that he hadn't experienced in a long time. He was just waiting for the other shoe to drop but he was more surprised when it didn't. He had taken to study in master the art of illusion in hopes that it would be able to hold up against Madara.

Hari used to visit him in his secluded place, quite often. Each time giving Itachi pointers on how could he better this Genjutsu. With a steady practice, and over two years of time Itachi had managed to cover the area with a genjutsu so dense, that it almost overpowered reality. Using his Mangekyo, he succeeded for a brief moment. At that time, Itachi had a long conversation with Harry regarding the nature of the universe.

"Yes, you could bring your whole clan back, in here." Harry said testing the soil on the ground. Illusion had this innate ability to shift things to the user's imagination. The air felt different and so did the spatial dimensions. The only thing that was keeping him alive was his sheer stubbornness of refusing to accept that this was anything but an illusion. "But you won't be able to carry them over the threshold."

Itachi looked intently at Harry, Mangekyo Sharingan spinning. Blood rolled down his cheek and down to the ground where several carnivorous mushrooms had grown, feasting on Itachi's blood each time he used its power.

"Your universe ends where reality begins." Harry remarked. He wondered if his powers held up in here. Could he really die in here? What would death be like in here? He wondered.

Itachi, meanwhile had a different thought process going on. Was it possible that reality was governed by some higher deity? If so, is it plausible that this world was also an illusion? His thought process got interrupted by a sharp pain in his eye. It looked like his eyes had reached its limit. Itachi hadn't had much progress in sustaining the last stage of the Sharingan. In two years, he had only been able to increase the time by five minutes.

As his dimension rolled back, he watched as something black wraith-like settle in inside Hari's chakra. He could not discern it further as his eyes became blurred and settled back to the Uchiha black.

* * *

Itachi didn't get along with everyone in the village and had more than few people who really hated his guts. Orochimaru, surprisingly wasn't one of them. Orochimaru did however, harbor an intense obsession to counter his powers of Sharingan. And so did, Deidara. The tag team match had resulted in Deidara getting very excited, detonating an N-1 explosive in the training area. Due to the containment seals, the blast compensated in the depth rather than the blast radius. The crater was a kilometer deep, where they found the land to be rich in crystals and other chakra conducive metals.

Orochimaru had by then, mellowed to some degree. Itachi suspected it was because of his secret experiment subject everyone talked about. Nevertheless, Hari broke the assassinations attempts on Itachi saying it was against the rules of the village and made them remember when they had first arrived inside the village. That had resulted in they being ashamed of their actions and everyone else took a hint.

It surprised Itachi, that he, Hari could be anywhere at any time. Most of people in the village had accepted as one of Hari's kekki genkai powers. That and finding out infiltrators and kicking them out of the village.

"You are still loyal to Konoha." Harry said out loud to Itachi. Itachi had ventured into Harry's office, something about taking a medical exam of some sort.

"It does not surprise you." Itachi said, surprised at Hari. He had told what he could to Hari about the preparations of an attack three years before and stated calmly that he would not aid him in battle.

"No, it does not anymore. Although it makes more sense now, to me. You wouldn't harm something you consider precious." Harry said with a self-depreciating smile. Itachi mistook his expression for pity.

"You dammed your soul for something larger than life. For something you couldn't, no, wouldn't abandon. Your loyalty. At the end of, all it matters is how you lived your life and how you died. I understand it as clearly as you do." Itachi opened his mouth to ask but Harry continued.

"Because you see, Itachi. I was just like you. I dammed my soul for my friends. To watch them live out their life in peace and not have any fear hanging over their heads. They owed me a lot but to see them happy, it was all I could ever ask for. So in the end, for me, all of what I did was worth it." Harry tore his gaze away from the evening sun and looked at Itachi.

"Here." Harry put his hands inside his coat and took out a vial of red and gold liquid. "Drink it."

"What is it?" Itachi asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Something that will rid that disease you have since birth." Harry stated. Itachi looked at the vial dubiously, before holding it in his hands. He had watched Harry heal many ninjas in the village but he had been reluctant to ask for help. He was about to reject the offer but Harry spoke first.

"You don't have to, you know." Harry said, rubbing his palms and looking at them. "You don't have to make yourself suffer."

"The souls of the dead cling to me, their ashes on my skin. How can I enjoy good health when all of my clan don't? When my brother feels the agony and hatred burn in him, everyday? Why should I be happy when my brother isn't?" It was his burden and he would take it on for as long as he lived.

"Atleast let me heal your eyes." Harry said, accepting back the vial. Itachi considered for a moment but then in a self-depreciated manner chose to accept it. Even if it was poison, or he had to go blind, he would gladly accept it. It was the least he could do for his brother. Die as painfully as he could; suffering as long as it was time to live.

"I was born in a wrong era of time." Itachi murmured as he laid down on the floor. 'But at least I have you, foolish little brother.'

Somewhere in Konoha, Sasuke sneezed and the hot tomato soup spill all over him. "Itachi! I'LL KILL YOU!" He roared for no apparent reason.

"Change your eyes to the red swirly kind. The last stage." Harry said, taking the red fluid in a glass tube. Itachi felt more comfortable as the Mangekyo Sharingan took its form. He could see everything clearly. The flow of time, each second going past before it went and the world in more than 4k HD. He felt more comfortable in this. He could use Izanagi if something undesirable were to happen. Hari's reaction to him being loyal to Konoha was not what Itachi had expected.

Harry dropped three drops of Elixir of Life in his right eye. The drops covered stayed on the surface for a while and after being absorbed tear glands. Itachi felt as his eyes covered by the liquid and a calm rush of cold with it. And then, as he blinked, the world seem more detailed and clear. He felt that he could power his eye for an infinite amount of time.

Harry could see no noticeable effect on the right and proceeded to do the same in the left. When the liquid finally got absorbed, Itachi groaned out in pain and then open his eyes once again.

"Whoa." Harry took a step back seeing purple rings in his left. His face took a WTF expression and Itachi looked around confused. Harry gave him the mirror and when Itachi looked at his reflected form he was shocked. His right eye had remained the same, except for the round black ring formed along the edge. His right eye, though… His right eye had the famed doujutsu, Rinnegaan.

"Can you see properly now?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Thankyou." Itachi bowed deeply.

"You are welcome…?" Harry said. Itachi sighed and began explaining his clan's history and various stage of Sharingan.

"The final form of the eyes seem to be Rinnegaan from the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan." Itachi mused out loud.

"Damn. Nothing of that sorts happened to me when I fixed my eyesight." Harry mumbled out, dejectedly. "Erm. Don't you have dislocation of retina every time you split your pupil in that shape?" Harry said, moving his fingers round.

"It is Sharingan." Itachi said, as if it answered everything.

* * *

The sound of fire crackling dominated in the momentary lull of conversation. Harry sat on one end of rock, surrounded by many others. Orochimaru sat on his left while Itachi sat on his right. Deidara was in the exact opposite of him and to his left, sat Zabuza and his partner Haku. Roshi sat on his right, content to watch the marshmallow get burnt black.

Haku was shooting furrowed glances at Roshi, not understanding why he felt an intense dislike to him. He figured it was the marshmallows since he liked it soft and warm while Roshi liked it roasted.

"So, Hari-San what made you form your own village?" Roshi asked. It had been only two months since he had some here. It was more of a passing visit really. There was a sudden increase in activity from Hidden Stone Village and he had multiple confrontations with them. He was forced to move away from his hideout and to seek better place.

Harry looked up from the orange fire burning and met his eyes. 'Why had he formed this village?' He remembered it clear as a day when the sudden inspiration had stuck him when, he had saved the a little kid from those hunter-ninjas. No, it was something before that.

 _Flashback._

"So let me get this straight." Harry said putting both his hands on the table. His forced his voice to remain calm, not showing any disbelief in it. "People just kill each other for money? Little children who haven't gone through puberty?" Wtf!? This white-haired guy in front of him was guzzling down alcohol like there was no tomorrow.

"It used to be worse than this, kid." His voice slurred.

"Oh. No no no. I refuse to believe that there is something even worse than this."

"There used to be no peace. At all. There was no stability and people of different clan were fighting with each other all the time."

"It's true." The boy who still hadn't spoken anything after he had saved him. "Humans are a pathetic." Utakata said.

Harry moved his mouth but no sound came out. Taking a pause, and accepting this information for now, he moved on. "So what now. Can't people see it now? There is stability now, isn't it?" Harry had seen many things in his life but the causal killings of other people mystified him to no end.

"There is too much hatred in this world for there to be one kid. The cycle goes on and the threat of war leads to great hidden villages gather more power which ultimately leads to other villages fear each other. This leads to war. I've been in the war kid and I hate to say it but there will be another. And another. Nothing can stop this from getting over." At that, man collapsed down knocked out.

Harry traveled a bit more, gathering Intel on this new civilization which grew more and more bizarre in his mind. There was a certain element in the lawless regime and those who held power that he could relate with it. He had accepted that power in the hands of human was not a good thing in the end. There were good people, but the evil outweighed the good.

"Such a crazy world this is." Instead of being happy of finally finding humans walking on earth again, though a tad bit disappointed. Harry had literally seen it all. The end of civilization so as to speak. He chose to linger around for a while to see his friends and family grow and mature. But after the fifth generation came he grew tired of it all.

Instead, he went to death-sleep. Waking after a hundred years, he found himself in the midst of war. A war between humans and machines. He had given a hand to defeat the machines and after extracting a promise from the humans, never to equip machines with intelligence he aided them to rebuild the civilization again. A hundred years passed and Harry, content to see the world prosper went to sleep once again. The death-sleep a regenerating quality in it that made the tiredness in his soul go away. It couldn't be defined in any other way. Every time he woke up, he felt fresh and young again. The next time he woke up, Harry suspected he was too late. Too late to save humanity. He woke up against the midst of war, again. Only this time, machines fought machines. Giants, with one side having red laser-like eyes while the other side had the soft ocean blue ones. The machines had evolved from what Harry could relate. They were alive. There was no other words to describe them with. They were huge in height and towered down over everyone else. He really didn't do anything but to watch the battle happen. Eventually, all of them took off, seeing the lack of resources on this planet. And Harry Potter, the Master of Death was left all alone.

Naturally he took it upon himself to clean the mess up. With the strongest banishing charm he could muster, he blasted away all of the sattelites circulating over the earth and disposed of all the waste materials in a sub-dimension. With a wave of his wand, Harry muttered a regenerative spell powering it with all his might and hoping after a million years, he could see life blossom on it once again.

He was woken up abruptly, from his death-sleep, by something pounding hard on his house. The wards had all but broken. It was strange, and through his eye-hole on the door, he could see great orange light all around.

Harry stepped outside to look upon a fox with nine-tails snarling around his house. "Aww." Harry said, seeing the cute ears and the chubby body. "You're so different." Nature had a way with things. Harry understood that much.

The fox, chewed on his hands, intent on ripping it from the shoulder itself. Ignoring the pain for the time being, he ushered the fox inside, while, the fox still chewed on his hands. Harry loved company and getting to know different things. Over the years, he found the fox to be quite a different companion than his usual bunch. People heck, animals usually mellowed over the years but this little fox- not one bit. He was always angry and malicious at everything in general. Dobby, the elf and Seria- the basilisk stayed clear of it. His phoenix had succumbed to the effects of time and died. And so, any company was a welcomed one.

But Harry could feel a deep hurt in the fox and he was certain he could, in time get to understand it better. But before he could do something about it, the fox just poofed away. Seeing there wasn't anything else around, he chose to see the world instead.

Harry had never been more happy in his life than he was now. He had come across human beings once again! He was overjoyed and hugged the nearest lady. He cried out in joy and danced merrily till he came across a sight of grown man wearing masks trying to kill a boy.

His 'saving-people-thing' kickstarted once again and he had now found the boy stuck with him. He seemed nice, if not too Snape like. He seemed to tolerate his presence but outright hurled insults to any other.

Utakata seemed such a strange name plus, he could sense a strange energy in him like the chibi fox. He'd always wonder what happened to that particular being. Utakata and he had parted ways after a while and Harry had an idea of starting his own village.

Harry blinked looking at Roshi once again. "I… I am looking for someone. I suspect that I shall find who I am looking for." Harry said with a smile. Harry could see the questions on their faces and immediately chose to divert the conversation. He had no clue how he would tell all that to them.

"I think I have might have solution to the threat we are facing of the great five nations." Harry said, suddenly alert.

"How so?" Itachi narrowed his eyes.

"Well. Each of you belong to a particular village. And everyone wants a piece of you-"

"Yeah. No shit!" Zabuza said and other murmured in agreement. "I don't think attacking them would be a good idea." Haku added.

"Hmm. No it definitely would not. If the villages want a piece of you, I say we give it to them. Give them a chance to try and kill you all."

The movement suddenly stilled around and the crackling of the fire could be heard, once again.

"If you think I'd take their punishment lying down you are sorely mistaken." Roshi said, indignant.

"Of course not. You'll fight them in a free for all battle. No holds barred, atleast on their part… in the Jonin exams."

"Hell yeah!" Deidara said out loud. "I can finally make them all see the final taste of my art."

"Erm... Okay sure." Harry said faintly, thinking of how he would limit subsequent stronger blasts from this Mad-Bomber.

"I wish there was a bit more time but… uh… a group of people is heading this way and I think they want to destroy the village." Harry said shifting in his seat.

"Eh. How many?" Zabuza said, his eyes glinting.

"The Hidden Stone Village, with Hidden Cloud Village and Hidden Mist Village together from that direction. The other two from the right." Harry said pointing in the other direction.

"THE FIVE GREAT NATIONS ARE COMING FOR US?!" All of them shouted out, alarmed.

"In about two hours, I wager." Harry said casually. "I just need your support on this. I feel like I'm so close, I just need a bit of time.

"This is unacceptable, Hari-San." Roshi said getting up. "I was promised a place of quiet and relaxation."

"On such short notice! Man Hari! That's so uncool." Deidara muttered out loud.

"Well, it'll boost up your reputations as well. Not to mention the money you'll get if you win each fight. Just think about it, Deidara. You'll be famous and so will your art."

"I little warning in advanced would've been nice. We could've made a good strategy to combat the combined force of the five nations. Now, the chances do not look good." Orochimaru said. He had known however, that something serious was going on outside. He already had an exit plan if things went south and most of the ninjas did as well.

"Yeah." Murmurs of agreement sounded from all sides.

"Wait… no…" Harry shook his hands and his face. "I'm talking about your co-operation in participation in the Jonin exams."

"But what about the war?" They all asked in unison.

"War? I got that covered." Harry said lazily, dusting up his pants. Surprised faces met him from all around. "Chill."

* * *

Ommake:

"Okay, who's next?" Harry said loudly. There was a long line of ninjas wanting to get in the band. The dynamic duo of Zabuza and Deidara had made everyone's blood pumping. Once they heard that the band needed more members to play different instruments, ninjas had lined up to showcase their talent.

"What a wuss." A ninja remarked, seeing the one Hari rejected from the band. Really now, all the fancy fight moves would wow the ordinary people but these were professionally trained killers. It was like seeing a child walking. It was a great thing that it had learned to walk, but everyone could do it. There was nothing special about it.

"Shhh." His friend hissed forcefully. The ninja in question turned to look where his friend had and sucked in a deep breath.

"The Kinslayer was walking ahead, with Erhu in his hand. A hush fell over the crowd as they watched in anticipation what this man would do.

Itachi started playing and was lost in the tune. His ninja-fingers moving with precision over the instrument. After the final stroke, Itachi looked up to see emotional faces.

"Zabuza-Sama, are those tears?" Haku asked innocently. Itachi had captured her heart with this song.

"Its a new water-style jutsu from my eyes." Zabuza remarked gruffly.

"Man that was deep." Deidara said, feeling something in his heart after a long time. The ninjas walked away slowly, feeling utterly weird and drained out of excitement.

"That was something." Harry remarked. "What is it called?"

"I call it, Sadness and Sorrow." Itachi remarked. "If that was not good, I have on another." Itachi said, thinking of playing is soundtrack.

"No!" Ninjas said quickly.

"We were trying to have a metal band, but you know what Itachi?" Harry said scratching his chin. "We can squeeze you in one or two songs."

"Okay." Itachi said, fading away.

* * *

A/N: A bit of convoluted description of past events in Harry's life. Thanks for reading.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Yes! An Update! Been polishing this for a while. Never could find a way to tie all up together. Anyways, onward we go! Lots of music in this chapter. The Battle Scene plays Game of Thrones Metal Cover by Erock.

* * *

Harry walked outside the farthermost perimeter and he could see the sun rising above. It was the darkest before the dawn, as the saying went and so, the first rays to pierce the darkness made it look like a metaphorical battle had been won between the darkness and light. The first rays of sun shone brighter than ever and it made Harry sigh in contentment. He opened his eyes, when a blast of cold air brushed across his face.

"Man, I've missed this." Harry mumbled to himself. He took out a chair from his pocket and a guitar and began playing a familiar musical piece. "Hmmm... Hmm. HmHmHmm Hm. HmHmHm..." He voiced from the back of his throat, singing the Game of Thrones title song. Occasionally, he missed a few notes and began playing it once again.

* * *

"What is he doing?" Hissed Pakura, of the Hidden Sand. The armies halted their ascend when they came across this peculiar sight. Instinctively, a hush fell over the entire army. Just ahead, was Hari - leader of **_that_** village, whose reputation rivaled to that of Hanzo of Amegakure.

"So, he knew we were coming." Kakashi said out loud enough for everyone to hear. His one eye narrowed as Might Guy nodded along with him. Their eyes were set in grim determination, thinking out how they would proceed further. Even Guy was serious for once.

"Man, this is so dull." Darui said bored. They had halted the attack for now when too many shinobi felt that they were heading into a trap. "Do you sense anything C?" His eyes lost that lazy stare for a brief moment, alert as he scanned the surroundings looking for anything out of the ordinary.

"No. As far as I know, there is no one there except him."

"Apologies Boss, to keep you waiting." He said thinking of his Kage. They had stalled for an hour and a half and arguments had broken out among them.

"Look! There is no one there! We must attack now!" Kitsuchi - of the Iwagakure said out loud.

"That's what he wants you to think! It is **_him!_** " Shouted another.

"What if he's just stalling for time?" Chukichi said quietly. His arms folded against his bulky frame, he continued, "I can say it with certainty that there is no shinobi with him." He as an apt sensor.

Jiraiya, listened to their arguments with narrowed eyes. Hidden Leaf Village had the most intel on that village and seeing that this Hari guy used seals in the past, that warranted further investigation.

"I need to check something out." He said to the other four leaders.

* * *

Like ants crawling all over the ground, the shinobi force had begun their assault - covering large swaths of land in an instant. Jiraya had not found anything that could be a seal on the ground or at a distance and that was all the armies needed to begin their assault. The ninjas were coming from all directions and Harry's heart beat with excitement.

He got up, and took a drag of splif he had lit up.

In the background, he could hear faint sounds of something metal. It looked like Zabuza was at it once again. That guy was hooked on playing the devil's instrument. He could hear beats as well. It looked like Deidara had joined him for the party. He gave a smile and tapped his feat to the rhythm.

Harry narrowed his eyes when he sensed a clear resolution on the approaching forces. They would not stop and so he, Harry had no choice left but to show them why messing with Missing village was such a bad idea.

Five elite ninjas stood above, Jiraya of the Hidden Leaf Village. Pakura from the Hidden Wind Village on the left most side. On the right Darui, the Elite of Hidden Cloud Village stood with the Hidden Stone Country elite, Kuteretsu and Kimmimaro of Hidden Mist Village.

Boar → Dog → Bird → Monkey → Ram: Harry lazily performed the hand-seals and slammed his hands on the ground.

The white smoke burst around him and then, a grey ethereal form hovered slightly above the ground. The sun had climbed upwards but there was a sudden chill in the air that negated the warmth of the sun. Soon, the warm yellow light dimmed down to a pale white. The sun, it seemed radiated heat no more, like it was a picture in the background. There was a greyish color permeating from all around that just made everything colorful dull and lifeless.

The ground below had _died._ The grass had withered and had the life sucked out of them and the ground seem to form ice that was hard as a rock. But, this was just the side-effect of the creature that Harry had summoned. The real effect was felt by each and every ninja that stood just in front of the creature.

They felt _so cold._ They could feel it in their bones. The sudden silence from all around compounded the effect of fear they felt from looking at the creature. Threads of cloth hung from the grey skeletal frame. The creature had no eyes and a large mouth that _sucked_ all the happiness from the surrounding.

The creature Harry had summoned, was a Dementor. As the Dementor glided forward, the ninjas collapsed, like puppets cut off from the strings. They didn't have it in them to fight anymore. Death would be preferable over this overwhelming fear and the crushing hopelessness that wormed in their hearts.

Harry took out his wand and waved it around. The air displaced itself to reveal that familiar toblerone structure. It was unreal as to how it had appeared. As if, the structured had forced itself into reality. One moment it wasn't and then it was just there.

Jiraya was fighting his own battle with his demons. This summoned creature had managed to halt his thought process and awakened some primal instincts. This wasn't a genjutsu, he could tell. The master summoner could easily differentiate between those two. Just who was this guy!?

The creature suddenly had a metal leash around its… neck?

Thinking that there was just one way out of this mess, he did his own summoning. If he had to resort to Sage Mode to combat this villain than he would gladly do it. His thought process stopped completely as he was reversed summoned back to Mount Myōboku.

Ninjas had been taught to defend physical as well as attacks that emerged from moulding chakra. This however, no _kage_ had taught their shinobis. This was something that could not be taught. The villages had a bad history of not able to give them emotional training. Sure, they could mute them when necessary, but what could you do when these emotions were forced up. When you were forced to recall that hopelessness over and over again, in such oppressive environment no one could get up and take the burden. That's how dementors worked.

That's why Azkaban was the worst thing that could happen to you. Ninjas had _never_ faced something like this in their lives.

The ancient dementor was determined to be free from the shackles and when it couldn't, it turned on the person who was keeping it from doing so. The metal chain soon transfigured itself into a steel rod which Harry, promptly thrust into the ground.

For a brief moment, a comical scene played out where it tried to choke Harry with it bare hands but it stopped after a while seeing it could never reach _him._

'Time to round up fallen foes.' Harry said mentally. "Dobby! Get to it." If Haku was master of hiding in plain sight, she had nothing on Dobby. It was like popcorn getting popped everywhere and filling the large tub. In this case, the tub in question was the ancient triangular elongated prison.

* * *

"Right. That should be far enough." Harry scratched his chin thinking of placement of dementors. They were spread across the whole area, like a convex mirror. Few of the members from the large shinobi continent had managed to escape the Dementor's aura. Harry fired an immobulus spell and watched it take effect on the group that now appeared to halt in their tracks. He had made few structural changes in the spell's design allowing them to have some movement in lieu of extended time.

Their eyes widened in slow motion as Hari apparated in front of them and sat down, pulling a chair and table from his coat. He pulled out a fountain pen and parchment and began penning down a letter.

 _Respected Leader of Village Hidden in the Leaf,_

This is with regards to the captured ninjas of your village. Following the intent of your ninjas in participation in the invasion of our most prestigious village, I have imprisoned most of ninjas that were involved in the above mentioned mess. Send someone to negotiate their release, seven days from today. After the said stipulated time, I assure you that you will never see them again.

I am confident that the negotiations that will take place will be fruitful and meaningful.

Sincerely,

Hari.

'Always end the letter on the positive note'. Harry nodded giving the letter a final look.

Harry got up, looking at the headbands one by one.

"Stop it now, will you?" Harry said to two of the ninjas who were doing hand-seals in slow motion. "Yes, you." Harry pointed at the ninja in the wearing headband which had a spiral-like symbol etched on it.

Iruka gulped seeing how he was helpless to do anything. His mind was a whirlwind of panic and thoughts were going at a million miles per second. But his body… Whatever jutsu this man had cast had left him helpless. And now, he was making his way towards him.

"You know to whom this letter is meant for, right?" Harry said not really expecting an answer. He went at his desk once again and wrote another.

Respected Leader of Village Hidden in the Clouds…

And so it went.

All in all, it took Harry about thirty minutes to get all of the letters ready and tucked safely into the respective ninjas armor pockets. By now, the ninjas had begun to speed up a little. Harry gave one of his disapproval glare which had had mastered from Mcgonagall and then proceeded to just walk past them and back to the village.

The ninjas looked at each other in disbelief. All of them had one question in their mind.

'The fuck just happened?'

* * *

"Youth..." Guy choked out a whisper. Those summons had sapped something fundamental inside him. Since then, he wasn't even able to open any of his gates. That hot strength that coursed through him had long gone and all that was left was his feeble body. He used to get his mental strength from his body and since his body no longer had that strength, his mind had given up.

Apart from that, he was all right.

Kakashi looked through his red eye the building structure and in a moment, had all the possible ways to break out in lay clear in his head. It was only when a shadowy figure floated by that he realized why there was such poor security inside this building.

The lock and key weren't meant to keep them in. It was meant for those things to be kept out.

"Guy… Guy." Kakashi hissed seeing his team-mate and eternal rival so helpless. "Hold on for a moment. I've… I've…" Kakashi tried his best to empty his mind and still his heart. It was his Anbu training that had gotten him through that difficult period in his life.

Come to think of it. There were a lot of difficult period in his life starting with his father. Then Rin, then his Sensei dying and then his failure of accepting his sensei's son as his own.

As the Dementor stood near to the iron bars and took a rattling breath in, all Kakashi was able to hear was the sound of thousand birds and how his hands were covered with her blood. His red eyes swirled angrily and morphed into a permanent state of Mangekyo.

That memory was etched into his very soul and Kakashi would never be able forget the things he had sacrificed for the village he loved so much.

"No…" Kakashi whispered out seeing the blood on his hand. "Not again. Rin…" He said as the darkness took him in as he passed out.

His eye continued to cry tears of blood.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief that the people in Missing-Village were just no-good, lazy, has-been's which most ninjas affirmed to be true; the same could not be said now. The people inside the village were extremely busy. From five year old's to fifty - ancient in terms of ninja years, were working hard. Everyone was busy with something. In few days, leaders of five great nations were going to come to negotiate release of their respective ninjas. No one wanted to face their respective _kages_ and the thought of doing so made them extremely uneasy.

Better was to work - something, anything to keep the mind from imagining that particular train of thought. Also, Orochimaru who was now in-charge of maintaining village security was a harsh taskmaster. And while Orochimaru was not able to convince Harry to extend his rights to that tower where prisoners were kept, he had his plate relatively full.

He had made a beautiful wall - an incredible wall across the southern border and the work on the northern one had started. Various guard posts were erected to keep a watch out for intruders.

* * *

"Incoming from two 'o' clock." A voice burst through the radio.

"There is no one at two 'o' clock." Another said.

"Errmm. From my two 'o' clock." The voice reiterated.

The radio burst to life with a professional voice saying, "Incoming from two 'o' clock confirmed." There was no hint of embarrassment in that tone. The Genin of Missing Ninja Village were given guard duty and the over-energetic bunch were keeping a keen sight on the borders.

"Is that confirmed?" The comms fell silent and yet alert.

"Yes confirmed sighting of two ninjas. Headbands from the Mist Village. Male has an eyepatch on one of his eyes. Female has red hair."

Surprisingly, the comms remained silent.

"Directions on proceeding?"

"Standard one-three-one." Came the clipped response.

"Halt!" The Genin leader gave a shout. The pair moving forward stopped and waited. One minute passed.

"State your purpose and intention."

"I am Mei Terumī and I am here to see Nu-Kage."

* * *

Ommake 1:

Under a heavy guard of elite Missing Ninjas, Mei was escorted to the headquarters that housed the esteemed Nu-Kage or what Hari was now referred to now. Every ninja was on guard and watching this not-Missing Ninja make way inside the village. It was outrageous and sacrilege. Mei was not concerned with the accusing eyes tracking her movement but Ao was nervous. They were technically a rebel faction and he wondered if this was the reason why they were allowed in. Could these people ever allow an honest ninja inside their village? He wondered.

It was at this point Zabuza and his trusted side-kick Haku saw them. For Zabuza, it was love at first sight. His breath hitched was lost in the heavenly beauty radiating in front of him.

 ***Love at First Sight Indian Dance Montage***

There was an energetic metal tune coming for everywhere just like Mei's hair blowing in the wind. The tone was care-free and wild. The beats of the music were just like Mei's bosom bouncing with every step she took.

 **Like a gift from the heavens, it was easy to tell,**

 **It was love from above, that could save me from hell,**

 **She had fire in her soul it was easy to see,**

 **How the devil himself could be pulled out of me.**

Their eyes met and Zabuza knew that that vibrant shade of green in her eyes would be forever etched in his brain. His eyes glazed over as he pictured them dancing in the mist created by him with a slight drizzle in the air.

 **There were drums in the air, as she started to dance;**

 **Every soul in the room giving time with their hands.**

He was shook into reality by someone fiercely tapping their hands on his shoulders. And as the fog fade away from his eyes, curious face of Haku swam back into his vision.

 ***End of Montage***

 **"** Zabuza-Sama, are you alright?" Haku asked, quietly.

"Hmm. Ah-yes." Zabuza replied and shook his head.

"Did she cast some jutsu on you?" Haku frowned, cutely.

Zabuza's eyes had that faraway look as he contemplated one of life's great mysteries. Women had that one Jutsu in them that no men could ever resist. He had never thought that he would be affected by it but the jutsu was cast. It pained him greatly to make his young apprentice learn of this dangerous trap of life. It seemed that he could no longer resist.

"There is a fatal jutsu that you must be careful of, Haku-chan." Zabuza said with his eyes closed and his body shaking. Haku was getting of age now and it was vital he knew the pitfalls of attraction and what followed after. His mind was made up but his body was physically revolting against the very idea of giving Haku "The Talk".

* * *

Ommake 2:

The music started on a hard note, like electricity coursing over water. The metal tune electrified the crowd.

Everyone's emotions were running high. This had been a major assault on the village and ninjas were waking up to a morning that was very different from their normal, silent almost peaceful for years. This was the best distraction Deidara could come up with. Harry had told all the ninjas that they could leave anytime they wished to but no one seemed to budge from their place.

And yet, they all were afraid.

"They must feel the glory of Art. They should realize that life is like that - that in a moment it can be extinguished. What matters is how you go out" His eyes took on a crazy glint. That gleam had never completely disappeared from his eyes. "Like an Explosion." That gleam was back.

"So, you want to set fireworks in the sky?" That was Orochimaru.

"No." Deidara replied honestly. He never could tell when someone was being sarcastic. Everyone turned their heads to stare at Deidara and subtly reached to their kunai pouches. Who was this guy and what happened to Deidara they all knew?

"We must show them the Art of Explosive Music." Deidara nodded with his two fingers parallel to the nose.

Deidara was on a roll, punching out solid beats through his palms. Zabuza was on fire, fingering the right notes till the sweet notes burst out from the instruments mouth. Haku was busy providing additional beats, banging on snares with his ice rods and occasionally seeing everything was on track.

 **"I'll try, she said as he walked away.** **Try not to lose you.** **Two vibrant hearts could change..."** Hari sang out loud. His voice echoing across the stadium.

Harry was getting red in the face, trying to nail every not to perfection. He breathed a sigh of relief when the chorus hit.

 **I wish I could be the one,**  
 **the one who won't care at all.**

Itachi, Haku and Harry joined in. They all could relate to this and the voices sang in harmony.

 **Confided in me was your heart**  
 **I know it's hurting you, but it's killing me.**

It was at this time when Zabuza started releasing his demonic aura. The guitar sequence was a classic in this one and it just jammed with Zabuza for some reason. That aura had an effect on everyone. They were all on edge, waiting for something to happen. The blood in their veins was pumping faster than ever. The most noticeable effect was on Haku who remembered a time where her father had tried to kill her.

 **Nothing will last in this life,**  
 **our time is spent constructing,**

Haku screamed, her voice had the death metal tone.

 **Constrict your hands around me,**  
 **squeeze till I cannot breathe,**

She remembered the exact moment when her father was choking her. It pained her so much to see someone betray her like that.

 **This air tastes dead inside me,**  
 **contribute to our plague.**

The plague that consumes their land. The plague that wiped out almost every bloodline user in the Land of Mist. This was unforgivable. It was a promise to something sacred that was broken. Something fundamental to life and the right to live.

 **Break all your promises,**

Harry joined in, shrugging off his surprise.

 **Tear down this steadfast wall,**

Zabuza sang along, supporting almost exhausted Haku.

 **Restraints are useless here,** **tasting salvation's near.**

They would have it. A place where everyone could live as they wished. They would fight for it and no one, _no one_ was going to take this freedom away from them. It was their salvation. Salvation of what they chose to leave behind in their old village when they joined this one.

The song ended on a high note, cheers from every side. That familiar feeling was back in everyone.

* * *

A/N: Man, Kakashi seems to be the strongest shinobi of all, to me. Look at how shitty his life has been. Deaths of everyone he looked up to. Pein had just one and turned mad. " _The world shall know the true meaning of Pain" **Bleugh.**_ Not to mention Obito. This mofo never quits his ideals despite being punched in the guts over and over again. For that kind of dedication, he has my respect.

A/N : I wanted to do one song and this seemed good. I tried with Sign - by Flow and It has to be this way \- by Jamie Christopherson. Somehow the idea of Haku bursting into Death Metal seemed fit. Hehe. The idea of Zabuza falling in love is hilarious and yet satisfying.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thanks goes out to War-Sage for encouraging me to update as soon as it was possible. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and left me messages as well. Keep them coming! On a different note, kinda wondering about Danzo. Don't know what I can do about him. Wanted to kill him off personally, but he's not the one to die so easily. Don't see him joining Madara cuz Uchiha and not sure if he can pull an Orochimaru, establishing his own village. What do you think about it? Leave it in the review.

* * *

"No... You can't eat them." Harry said tiredly. The all-pervasive aura of dementors was thick in the air here. It wasn't easy conversing with dementors, not when they wanted one thing all the time, for all of time. Occlumency helped suppress negative memories from surfacing but did not in any way, reduce the strength of the dementor's persistent effect on his person.

"No. You can't eat me as well." Harry said in the same bored tone. The dementors hovered in the air, waiting for some sort of explanation.

"Look, I'm sorry someone went ahead and cursed you to be hungry till eternity. That must be very disturbing." This hunger had taken a form of its own, growing into something that could digest souls and feelings.

Harry sweat dropped at the rattling breath that dementors took.

"Look. You have your curse and I have mine. Just..." Harry said gesturing with hands, placating. "Just wait till the end." An eerie calm fell over the lot until they move forwards as one.

"Uh. No. I realize that we are in a unique position to help each other out, so to speak." Harry said taking a step back and unsheathing his wand. "A possibility I haven't discounted out, but I'd like to wait till the end. I want to see how it ends. The universe; one mystery that no one has managed to solve yet."

It was a singular thing that most of the scientists had agreed on, in the end. They would never know for sure. Sure, they had models describing how it all began and spatial dimensions that had exceeded Harry's age at that time.

Both were left contemplating, in silence.

It was at this moment, Orochimaru- the self appointed chief of defense came as far as he dared, to Harry.

"Hari-san." Orochimaru said, twitching. "We have a development."

Harry nodded, giving a final glance to the terrible thirteen and walked back towards Orochimaru.

"Quite a powerful summons you have with you, Hari-San." Orochimaru whispered lest it attracted the attention of that creature.

'Such power and yet this man, wasting it away.' Orochimaru thought enviously.

"Yes. We have an understanding." Harry replied smoothly and gestured. "What is the development?"

"A rebel faction from the Mist-Village is asking to speak with you on an important matter."

"Any ideas on what?" Harry asked quietly though his voice cut through the permeating silence, all around.

"Whatever it is, it certainly won't be them wanting to join this village." Orochimaru said.

"Direct her to my office." Harry replied curtly as he walked back faster towards the warmth of the village.

* * *

"No. Just no." Harry said flatly at this beautiful redhead women. Her shoulders slumped a bit and gave a small, noticeable pout. Behind her, the bodyguard was trapped in a perpetual state of frenzy. His pupils were running marathons across eyes's circumference. Everywhere he looked, he saw shinobis hanging over the wall and behind it.

"Oh. Hari-Sama, would you not reconsider? Surely, it would be beneficial to us both if you could extend their stay for a while? Only till we have managed to overthrow his wretched regime." Mei said, coyly.

Orochimaru who chose to linger, in plain sight after showing the two persons into the office was scheming every possible path this negotiations could be beneficial.

If they could take over a village... Ohhh.

The political and security ramifications would be felt by the remaining four villages and the machinations he could then put in place! But he could not, singlehandedly take on any kage. He was not foolish even-though he was very close to finding out how Hidan was immortal. But that was just the very start. Seeing Hari's summons had put a lot of questions in his mind.

They way they seemed to suck life out of everything, indicated Hashirama's antithesis. The nature chakra and the transformation technique Jiraya had learnt made him want to investigate in that area as well.

And that fool Jiraya had turned tail and ran at the first sign of trouble. That in itself, was a question. Why did he leave his fellow shinobi behind. What of all the lectures and emotional vexing Orochimaru had to listen when he had ran away.

The only thing that was clear now, after trying to understand nature, was his ignorance. The boundaries of his ignorance was the only thing he had a complete clarity over.

Zabuza was hiding outside the window, content to listen to the conversation. Haku had no trouble sneaking in and was stuck to the ceiling. The swordsman cursed Haku's small form and his ability to hide almost anywhere.

If only he could see her once more. This didn't make any sense to him. This feelings he had inside, that made his stomach churn like a batch of stale dango. He remembered her form in clear detail. There was not any feature that Zabuza could not, not recall with absolute clarity. It was part of his job description. It was what he had taught Haku.

But then why, did he wish to see her again?

Deidara woke up at dawn at a beautiful scenic sight of sun-rays bursting forth from the trees. The birds were chirping and flying around and a cool breeze blew all around which pissed him off.

"One day, I'll blow you up so that you can't disturb my sleep!" He shouted out to the sun shining above. "I'll then create an explosion loud enough to wake everyone from their sleep." He mumbled as he shifted to the side and fell back asleep.

* * *

Hoshigaki Kisame, a seasoned jonin had seen it all and then some. Been through extreme conflict, both at home and in distant lands, it was fitting that what little shred of morals he had were forsaken a long, long time ago. But the blank look of his kage was perhaps the most disturbing of all.

Disturbing and alarming. For, after reading the letter from the irritating leader of that new village his kage had fainted - like the strings snapped from a puppet. What disturbed him further was the tailed beast was no longer in him. Kisame was not moved by much at all, these days but this was something that held his interest.

What this meant for this village? Would the rebel faction try and take over? How was it that Hari, the new leader of that village had subdued the allied shinobi forces?

There were battle-worthy shinobi's in that village. The demon of the Mist - Zabuza was there and reportedly stronger than ever before. Every fibre of his being screamed to rush in the battle. To try his might against them. The Kage's guard shivered when a violent storm of KI surrounded them. They knew what Kisame was and with their Kage indisposed at the moment, there was no telling what he would do. He reported directly to Misukage and for the past year, the two had been quite close.

They looked up to the sky, seeing clouds rumbling high waiting for them to provide an answer out of this problem.

Behind them, the red kaleidoscope eye swirled back into the void.

* * *

"If you want to do something, you have do it yourself." Madara muttered to himself, disgusted with the chain of failures that had occurred in the past three years. Although, he had pressing matters to address in the past years this was it. He was vibrating with rage. No one had come close to defeating him since Hashirama and there would be no one in the future.

Standards had fallen by a hefty margin since. With just pockets of shinobi amounting to the top 1% which Madara had collected over the years.

Deciding the capture of Jinchuriki to be put on hold, Madara focused on the eradicating a persistent foe on his side. The remaining seven would have to wait. This retribution was long overdue.

* * *

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the current Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaf felt a smoldering anger in the pit of his stomach. The smoking pipe was held taut in this mouth, threatening to crack if any more force was felt upon it.

On the outward, there was no display of emotion or leak of killing intent - for he was a veteran in holding onto this position and no matter what amount of pain he felt at the temporary loss of his children, was compensated with the fact that there would be consequences.

Kakashi - a mere boy subjected to so much pain; sacrifices that could break anyone had persisted through it all and continued to do so this day and age. Jiraya - who had left his god-son with him so that he could continue to look after the security of the village. Might Guy who had worked so hard his entire life and was a beacon to all that Konoha aspired to be. Full of life and energy. And many more faces that he remembered but didn't interact with them that often.

And to be able to overcome such odds... That made Hiruzen pause and let the fog disappear.

'If you were here, Danzo. It would be just like old times. Us figuring out the small cracks and holes in the enemies armor.'

Hiruzen focused his gaze to the shaking ninja in front of him.

"It is alright Iruka." He said with such plainness that is felt untrue. It was anything but all right.

"I... I ran away from my comrades and friends. I left them with them!" He cried in anguish.

"And in doing that, you have brought back valuable information that we can use to our advantage. You have done a great deal in helping this village. Thank you." Hiruzen said, dismissing him.

"There was a jutsu he did that slowed down our movements. It allowed him..." Iruka gulped, remembering that terrifying moment and feeling guilty of being afraid. "He could've just killed us and we could not have done anything." Iruka babbled out.

"Report to intelligence unit tomorrow and you can debrief them about this." Hiruzen said.

'The one jutsu to rule them all.' Hiruzen thought out after Iruka had gone away. Was it not like that in each conflict?

The first hokage had outclassed everyone with his mastery of nature chakra while the second had an exceptional mastery of suiton.

His predecessor and successor had intimate knowledge of sealing arts that had managed to win them the third shinobi war. Somehow, in the great scheme of things, it was jutsus which transformed the landscape and not raw power. This was the greatest boon the Leaf Village had in the previous three wars but now, it felt like a curse.

As things stood, Hari seemed to have tricks up his sleeve. To be able to defeat Jiraya...

Sarutobi's thought process halted seeing a puff of smoke and a small toad sitting on this desk. The lines on his forehead parted in relief and the pipe hung loose in his mouth.

 _Will be there in a day's time. Patience is a virtue._

The paper crumbled to ashes in his hands, a habit he had long cultivated back and had become a habit.

One of his boy was safe and that was all that mattered to Hiruzen right now.

* * *

"No assistance will be given to free the Mist Village to overthrow that leader." Harry raised his fingers up, counting. "Two, We will not prolong stay of prisoners any more than what time is overdue. Three, No Fucking way, we are handing these prisoners over to you."

"No need to be rude, Hari - San." Terumei said, giving a small huff.

"Our village has a policy of non-interference in such matters. If you, perchance manage to overthrow Yagura-San than we will extend the same courtesy to you, should anyone come trying to knock the kages down.." Harry put in succinctly.

Aoi, who had been sweating from the physical exertion of taking in threats which had surrounded them from all sides, sweatdropped when a swirling void snatched up Hari before anyone could do anything.

"My my... Did someone just kidnapped Hari-San?" Mei murmured silkily. Purple lines appeared behind Aoi's head. Mei didn't really know when to keep her mouth shut. He was now alert, and at the slightest sign of attack they duo would respond in full force and judging from the furious looks on the nuke-nins, they would too.

* * *

Itachi who spent most of his evenings in the arena, battling various shinobi's paused mid-way when he sensed _his_ chakra. It had been too long since he had sensed him again but this time it was right under the Kage's tower. The slight distraction was enough for Daisuke to close in and deliver a powerful punch to Itachi's face. The figure burst into crows and reformed as red sun with backdrop of angry orange skies.

The genjutsu was a three layered one. One that was close to the infamous Tsukoyomi. The one he kept on at all times to avoid any and all sorts of tracking within and outside the village. Daisuke saw the attack coming and after a long parry of blows, Itachi's hand pierced through his chest and his heart was in his hand.

"Kai!" Daisuke yelled and the Genjutsu cleared. Funnily enough, the exact sequence of moves played out, with Daisuke getting more paranoid by the minute. At the final move, Itachi's hand touched Daisuke's ribs and he fell down on the ground, utterly terrified. He looked up to see the swirling black and red wheel in all its magnificence. This was not something mortals had.

This was a gift from gods.

This was, the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Itachi left towards the tower without any thought of his opponent lying down on the ground.

* * *

"There were no seals in the battle-ground, I checked thoroughly." Jiraya remarked flatly, his arms folded over his chest. Hidden leaf village had never faced such defeat in the past. Sure, there were instances where at a particular time, they had to beat a hasty retreat but never like this.

"It was a summoning. I can tell you with certainty and no, Ma and Pa don't know about them. They..." Jiraya made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, "They talked about _balance_ and Kami knows what. I didn't have time to figure out more." The T&I room was quiet and Hiruzen looked intently at him trying to discern what Jiraya was saying.

Balance between what? Chakra and ... That was it. He did not know anything besides that. What did _not-_ chakra look like? He did not know and therefore could not find out a way to combat it. If this were summons, how could you summon them without chakra?

"Describe to me, what happened at the moment when he summoned those creatures." Hokage said quietly.

"There was plain terror. The shinobi - "

"No. At the very moment. You say he did perform hand-signs, did you not? What happened immediately after?"

"They appeared. Like summons." Jiraya said, irritated.

"Just like your summons appear? Like mine? Like everyone who summons?"

"No." He frowned trying to remember. He was caught up doing his own handsigns and when he had looked up, he saw them...it. On a second thought, there was something odd with how the towers had appeared as well. "The tower came first. The creatures were already there."

"So, the structure was buried in the ground. He just summoned it up to the top." Hiruzen concluded, taking a strong hit of the tobacco.

All further communications halted as they heard a sound of old wooden stick striking against the floor through the corridor. Homura and Koharu, who were sitting across one another widened their eyes in surprise.

* * *

Harry resisted the instinctive urge to apparate as soon as he was snatched up. Instead, he took time to look at the surroundings and found it straight out of a sci-fi movie. The rectangular column of rocks, hanging above and below were very dull and gray.

"Can breathe and taste." Harry said, licking his tongue and raising his thumb high. "No draft or signs of wind." He remarked. "Death has power in this realm and it's hold is absolute." He nodded to himself.

"Place is devoid of magic." He'll have to spend his energy if he was willing to risk a battle here. He blinked aimlessly, looking around coming to a conclusion that he was to be here until he showed up.

"Right..." His voice fell flat in the surrounding. "Let's look at how you are made now, shall we?" The squiggles sparkled gold and Harry was at it, trying to discern any clear pattern. This was the reason why building and breaking wards was such a tricky business. The language was irrelevant and was not seen on the surface. You had to decode the pattern instead.

The pattern was vast and all-encompassing. This was not something that a man could have done in a short time. Possibly a century or two of work was in here. Either a generation of a line was involved in making this or this was the work of a supernatural creature. It certainly was more plausible that a supernatural creature was involved considering that Harry had dealt with those sort in the past. The Demon Realm stood out like a sore thumb, given how many times they had tossed him into one realm to another.

The toxic sulfur had made his head hurt everytime. But the wards and the construction of those dimensions was easy, and their pattern, easily recognizable.

He stared intently at the pattern, remembering it for later and shook his head.

"Let's do it." Harry said, with a hint of excitement. He apparated to a distant column and sighed in relief. All set to apparate out of this pocket dimension, he paused when an idea hit him.

"Yes, this will do." Harry said looking up to a small rectangular column. Waving his wand over, the said column transfigured itself into a life-size doll of Harry Potter. Hastily, he scribbled down few runes on its chest and added a proximity sensor to its throat. If someone came close to this piece of work, they would hear just one thing.

"Yippee ki-yay." And then, they would Die Hard.

* * *

"Alright. Settle down everyone." Harry said calmly walking in.

"Oh, Hari-San, you look handsome as ever." Mei giggled politely, relaxing her shoulders. Ao, on other hand, had begun cracking under the stress of the job. Always the cautious sort, he found it outrageous that their leader would spout the things that first come to their mind. It was only because she was a lady, that no one took objection. If someone told this to him, he would not take this sitting down.

"Yes. Ahem. How long was I gone?" Harry asked Zabuza, who didn't respond back.

"Twenty Minutes." Hissed Orochimaru.

"Oh." Harry said looking at Zabuza's locked gaze. "It sure felt longer than that. Thankfully, the intruder was not able to capture me, and took my Kwarimi doll instead." Harry remarked with fake cheer.

"Then how come the doll is with you?" Orochimaru remarked, calmly.

"You can never have too many dolls!"

Everyone in the room sweatdropped, looking at the puppet in front of them.

"Yippie-" Harry muffled the sound coming from the puppet. His magic was a bit jumpy after the whole fiasco.

"So!" Harry exclaimed loudly, "As said before, there will be no-" Harry was cut off by Itachi materializing right beside him.

"He controls the Kage of the Village Hidden in the Mist." Itachi spoke without any inflection, softly in Harry's ear.

"You sure?" Harry asked, making eye contact with the infamous Kinslayer. No one dared to do that, in this village. With Itachi's rare appearance in this village outside of spars, he had accumulated a cult following among the young brood and while Itachi had not lend any credence to their rumors, he made no effort to dispel any of it. This had led to his notoriety skyrocketing above everyone else.

Ao, whose breath had hitched from the sudden appearance, which his _Byakugan could not find,_ tried to make any logical conclusions as to how he would've got here.

'The only person to enter through the window was the Swords-man and no one else. I have counted everyone including the one still sitting on the ceiling. Meaning that... that we have been under genjutsu the entire time.'

'Curse you Itachi'. Ao thought, keeping eyes on the floor, as did everyone.

This was the power of the Gods.

This was, the Mangekyo Sharingan.

"Fine! Change of plans! We are taking over... uh... lending help to defeat the Misu-Kage." Harry said, pinching his nose.

"Orochimaru! Get the paper and write down the contract!" Harry said and turned back to the two guests. "I sure hope that you won't be like him. We've had many people coming here and most of them are from your village. I will not overthrow one dictator to have another." Harry said, his eyes glowing green.

Between the two of them, Ao didn't know who was less threatening - Itachi or Nu-Kage.

* * *

A/N: Right! If you haven't surmised it already, I'm kinda obsessed with Sharingan and Itachi. I think its the way he stared at Sauske - a blank face with Mangekyo swirling in it, in that final battle. Thank you for reading.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Hello all! I apologize for the long wait. Itachi had trapped me in Genjutsu and forced me to make him more cool. This chapter features a sneaky Orochi as well. Some of you have commented how Itachi should not be as cool as Harry but he will have his moments. The chapter, I feel is a bit choppy. I wrote this in parts, after a long interval.

* * *

The village fell back to a comfortable schedule which all the residents found it well within their comfort zone. Day-to-day activities had resumed with cheer and little genins could be found loitering around the market place, looking for something that would catch their fancy. Haku had been active lately, making ice sculptures and paper planes to sell. She would then use the money that was raked in to buy copious amounts of ice-cream. Zabuza had to take his apprentice aside to lecture the proper etiquette of eating ice-cream which consisted of telling her flat out not to do so in the open. The stares she had been getting lately, while licking the creamy vanilla off the cone alarmed Zabuza very much.

The village also got used to seeing the two not-missing-ninjas coming in everyday and leaving at sun-down. Harry, who had been frustrated with the amount of security checks they had to go through, including him personally being there, decided that it was best if they were equipped with bio-metric ID cards. Orochimaru had to be a pain regarding the security issues lately. The first few times the guards at the gate had been intrigued by this strange machine beeping once when the identification was approved but often, the system had glitches. It had been an interesting day when the machine failed to approve the two of them at the first try.

Ao could only gulp and hope to Kami that the second time the damned machine would let them in else there was going to be a blood-bath. Everything escalated quickly here. There was no prescribed order like that in the Five Great Villages. Ao couldn't help but make comparison all around at the glaring differences that set this damned village apart from the rest. In his eyes, the set structure of the past was a noble one and these strange machinations like the free-market and what not was not the pure way in the set structure all around. Mei on the other hand, gravitated daily to the market stalls that sold jewelry. He just hoped no one caught an eye of the leader from this village. The Missing-Swordsman was a cause of concern but at the same time, kept everyone away from looking at his leader. He didn't know whether to thank him or be distressed about it. Mei didn't have any qualms about Zabuza hanging around and so he did not voice his concerns out loud. Besides, he had been threatened enough already.

* * *

"Meeting seven is now in session. Present members include Hari-San, leader of the Missing Ninja Village; rebel leader Mei Terumi; her bodyguard Ao; Orochimaru- the famed Sanin and the chief negotiator; the scribe Norimo." Orochimaru said with a hint of smugness. "Members absent from this meeting include, Zabuza," Orochimaru had not liked how Zabuza was cosying up to the rebel leader and summarily thrown him out. "Itachi of the Uchiha clan." Orochimaru pursed his lips at the slight disapproval. He had not liked one bit the fame Itachi was showered with but he was not the one who had problem with him. Ao had been most uncomfortable with him being present in the room and Harry had acquiesced their demand. "Normio, read out the minutes of the last meeting." Orochimaru said formally. Harry had a bored look on his face at the proceedings and couldn't wait for this damned negotiations to be over with.

"Ahem." Norimo said in a deep tone. "Title 2 dealt with the formal request of the rebel leader and the Nu-Kage in his most gracious-" Harry cleared his throat and Normio smoothly fell back in line, "accepted the request. The following stipulations have been made by the all-powerful-" Harry gave Normio a look which he ignored, "and most respectable leader, Hari-Sama."

"These include..." And so it went on. Harry never thought it was this tedious of a task to negotiate with someone over something like this. He coudn't wait for this shit to get over. Something told him to pay attention to this task as he knew quite well the tendency of Orochimaru to use his silver tongue to get a very good deal. It wasn't that he didn't want a good deal but wanted the soon-to-be leader to behave and maybe look at doing some development rather than the age-old ritual of boosting their military capacity at all cost.

"Number 8. The leader installed, whomsoever it may be will notify and assist the Nu-Kage if it is asked of them to do so. This extends and not limited to a direct assault on the said village, any espionage or - " There was a sharp knock on the door which halted the flow of the conversation. Harry was getting tired of nodding along welcomed the interruption.

The genin bowled into the room and hurriedly have a deep bow. "They have arrived, Hari-Sama." He said excitedly. Harry and Orochimaru shared a look. It looked like the Village Hidden in the Leaf had arrived to collect their possessions.

"You go on ahead. I'll be there shortly." Orochimaru said thinking about what dress to wear when meeting his old Sensei which he knew would be present from his informants in the Leaf Village. He had not, shared this information with Hari.

* * *

"Um... You weren't supposed to come." Harry said shortly after seeing the entourage contained the Leader of Leaf Village, Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"I am the chief negotiator of the village and thus, I shall negotiate the terms and conditions of their release." Hiruzen said formally. He did not know if he should be thankful of the trio that had greeted him. He knew the two personally considering they were once under his command. Itachi stood at the left of Hari while Orochimaru stood behind towards the right. He did not however, like the way Orochimaru was staring at him. Was he trying to catch his eye? He could not say for sure.

He grew alert as the leader- Hari, took out a sword.

"Right." Harry said disregarding the alarmed looks thrown his way. He was at arms length when he thrust the sword down in the ground and drew a line. "Do not cross that line chief negotiator, under any circumstance."

"The line is made of infinite points that extends in both directions." Orochimaru remarked, rolling the 's'.

Harry looked back at Orochimaru, squinting his eye. Disregarding the weird clothing that he had dawned on, he turned towards Sarutobi.

"What he said." Orochimaru gave a pleased smile and that was that. Itachi, meanwhile was standing absolutely still staring at one particular ANBU. Harry shrugged off the unusual calm that fell over the group due to the two odd characters act.

"Well, lets negotiate." Harry said extending his arms sideways, hinting that they take a walk, parallel to the line drawn.

* * *

Mindful of the "imaginary line", Hiruzen walked calmly along with Harry. It was then, that Hiruzen spoke.

"I assume they are all alive and well?"

"As well as they can be, yes." Harry replied curtly. "I am deeply hurt that the Great Five Villages sought to eradicate this small village."

"Quite brave of you to stand up and defend the honor of the shinobi who have none." Hiruzen replied back. His wit was as sharp as it had been.

"I should know how honorable they really are, after all. Many of them are from your village." Harry replied back smoothly. "The bounties you've put on shinobi, labeling them 'Missing'. I think the price of the shinobi's release should be as such."

"I would ask you to be careful, Hari-San." Hiruzen said, his face carved out of stone. "We make no guarantee what compensation we would demand should we ever catch hold of one of yours. Perhaps we can come to an acceptable framework of how we can trade prisoners, so as to smooth things out in the future."

"What missing-ninja's do outside is none of my concern. You can do whatever you like if you catch them. However, I am willing to hear your proposal out if certain conditions are met." Harry replied back.

* * *

Orochimaru fumed on the inside as he looked at the two figures in the distance. Every ninja who could read lips knew in passing what they were talking about.

It should've been him there, negotiating with his former leader. He even had a list of witty retorts in hand if and so the situation called for it. But now it seems those were just sand-jutsus in the air. It seemed Hari was comfortable doing this on his own. The surprise, which Orochimaru had hoped to throw off Hari had not been enough for him to ask his help, in the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Itachi had not moved or glanced at anyone except that one person wearing the hawk ANBU mask. There was no genjutsu around just plain old staring.

Both the characters were really weird to the people who did not know them which made up of almost the entire delegation.

* * *

"… And so, this is, in my opinion much better compared to the one that you mention." Harry replied. "Children of age…" He paused for a moment to really think about what age Itachi was and do some algebra. "10 can and should be released for a nominal fee for the first time. The fee for you in question will depend how much you de-escalate your activities in the surrounding areas of our village."

"That area is also in our vicinity." Hiruzen remarked. Silence hung around the two; they had been talking for good fifteen minutes and Harry felt he could do this without needing Orochimaru at all. He wasn't sure of the few sentences Hiruzen had said or what they really meant and would have to ask him about the same.

"Would you care for some tea?" Harry remarked casually.

"Yes." Hiruzen said without missing a beat.

* * *

The group's attention once again swerved towards the two figures. Harry took out two chairs and their leader did some hand-signs, elevating a rectangular slab to a waist height. Harry took out a thermos and some tea-bags. They watched their leader, dipping something in the hot water taking a sniff of the drink. They relaxed only when their leader took a sip from the cup.

Meanwhile, Itachi stared at the lone ANBU in the hawk mask.

* * *

"One...Two...Three..." Might Guy strained himself to the point of exhaustion as he attempted to do push ups. It usually amounted to thousands, which he used to abbreviate whenever he completed a set. But this time, his score was just in the single digits. Desperation had set in him. How was it that he felt well fine but could not do what he could do oh so easily. What had this leader done to him. The first week was pure torture but as they learned the in's and out's of the ghastly summons, they knew when to be active and when to sleep.

"Hold on, Kakashi." Might Guy said with his teeth clenched. Kakashi had not moved from his place. All Guy could make out is the twitch of his fingers and the electricity he had come to associated with chidori. A sudden chill broke Guy's stance.

'Why had they broken their schedule?' Guy thought.

Kakashi, who had been climbing up from the wall of eternal despair fell down once more into the dark abyss as he heard the sounds of lightning crackling in his mind. Like clockwork, the haunted bloody image showed up. The Sharingan ensured that the details were crystal clear. He could see her breath hitch and life flowing out of her and warm blood flowing down from his hands. The most painful part however, was the sad acceptance she had on her face when she breathed her last. He didn't think he could go through this again. But then, he had said the same thing past few times. Every time the despair would grab hold him, he kept rising back up. It was like seeing a flower bloom on a concrete road; so god-damn poetic.

"Good news leaf people. You'll be out soon that is if everything works out well." Harry said. "As promised. They are alive and breathing."

Shikaku bent down, to meet eyes of Guy who gave him a weak thumbs up and then to Kakashi. His shadow extended and connected with the prone body sitting cross legged. A hand rose up, mimicking Shikaku's movements and stopped at the eyepatch. It seemed that Kakashi was resisting his movement. A series of pulses went back and forth, and Shikaku breathed a small sigh of relief. The high value targets were secured, as Hokage had put it. All he had to do was to visit the other fifteen. Hopefully they would get out soon and then so would he.

How was it possible to stay in this place? How much had his friends endured? He could not think. He did not want to think.

* * *

Shikaku gave a curt nod as he approached the group.

"One is in critical condition, Aoba Yamashiro, 0115840. They have transported to their medical centre." Shikaku said asking for any further input. "The two Aburame does not look so well in there."

"Have they been researched?" The hawk-masked ANBU asked pointedly.

"Kakashi does not seem to think so."

Sarutobi looked at Shikaku, questioning. "What do you think we should do?"

"Those summons..." Shikaku shook his head. "He keeps them around because there is a fear that the five villages might attack anytime. Either we find a way to defeat those summons or we promise to de-escalate. We tell our allies to do the same. The shinobi's are not looking well. Those summons need to be gone any ways how." Shikaku surmised.

Hiruzen thought pensively for few moments and then resolved. "We collect our ninjas and leave immediately. The rest can be deliberated when we reach home."

All through this discussion, the hawk-masked felt the stare of Itachi on his back.

* * *

"Here." Harry said, holding out a bar of chocolate. They all looked so weak and exhausted. Four of them were in stretchers and he didn't think they would make it through if he didn't help. "This will help in their recovery." Hari said to Sarutobi.

ANBU in fox-mask grabbed hold of Cocoa-beans and carefully gave them to their leader. Sarutobi wondered how this sweet could possibly help in curing a person near death and shrugged. He knew Aoba would not survive and this would help him gauge the leader of this Village. He had not poisoned the tea. As far as food and drinks were concerned, the leader of that Village was not the one to play tricks like that.

He watched in fascination as his shinobi's breathing eased up and color return back in an instant. This made him more suspicious than relieved. This assuaged the fear that they were demons summoned but raised a new one. Hari knew his summons very well. He knew the effects it had on people and knew how to counter it. He was willing to share this information meaning there was a lot more that to this summons that met the eye. He pondered for a while, glancing at his shinobis. They would help in understanding this Village's leader better. Did he have contact with their shinobis? If so, what was he most curious about? What were his aims?

The contract was signed and they had agreed to diffuse tensions between the two of them, for now. Perhaps, the most disturbing was to watch Orochimaru healthy and happy. He had made a mistake of catching his eye once and he didn't think he could see him again, smiling.

Suddenly, the Hokage's guard had surrounded him and he turned his head to see why.

Itachi had just walked past him bowing his head as he did so.

* * *

"Hokage-Sama" Itachi politely bowed as he walked pass him. No one had ever crossed the 'imaginary' line during the entire process! He looked at Hari, who had his eyebrows raised and just shrugged. Shrugged! Just where was Itachi headed?

He looked to see and the answer was clear in an instant. He knew. Itachi knew that _he_ was alive.

* * *

Itachi, for the longest time, could not come to a decision what to do about Danzo. So, for the most part he crushed the instinctive urge to kill him on sight and focused on his breath. That had taken half-of his day. The other half was to accept the fact that Danzo was here and so it stood that he would try and influence Sasuke in some way. It was when the sun was at the horizon and the red-skies above, he took the decision to send a message.

He crossed the line, literally.

He calmly moved out of the way of various ANBU trying to block his path and deliberately kept slow as a snail. He stood in front of the hawk-masked ANBU and stared, willing telepathically that he get the message. The present company was less than desirable of making his points with words. The kunai was already digging in his neck.

The stand-off continued for a while and to the outsiders of the small circle, it looked like Itachi was surrounded by all sides. They could also see that this did not affect Itachi in anyway. The tension had reached new heights as the hawk-masked ANBU made no move to do anything, but to let Itachi stare away. Itachi had a way of looking down on people, even to the people who were equal as far as height was concerned.

"He's gone." Sarutobi whispered softly, his eyebrows raised. What Jutsu was this, where one could simply vanish without the use of chakra?

"Autumn is coming, Saruto-bi." Orochimaru had said, when the deal had concluded and Hiruzen had to agree.

Change was certainly in the air.

* * *

"Right." Harry said walking back to his office to find the two ninjas still sitting there.

"When you come back tomorrow, I want you to have given enough thought about these two things." He said confidently. "Number One, Free movement across our border. Meaning if your shinobi decides to shift to my village, you will not object. The same goes for people wanting to shift back to your village. No labelling them as Missing Ninjas when they do so. Number two, free exports and imports across our borders." With the end in today's negotiations, Harry felt that he could do this on his own.

"In exchange, there will be not relocation of the kekkai-genkai clans to my village as previously agreed, unless they want to come here willingly." This left Orochimaru fuming. He had worked hard to wrangle this out of them and now this guy had given that away as well. How could he ever hope that they will hold up to their end of the deal now.

"Let's wrap this up here today. I have got a couple of things to do." Namely, banishing the Dementors back to a dimension.

* * *

Ommake:

"Oh, hey Itachi." Harry said seeing Itachi up in a tree looking at the moon. Itachi looked down and replied after a long pause.

"Hello, Hari-San."

"..."

And that was that. Itachi's eyes tracked his movements which were in the direction of the prison that Hari-San had set up. He was on his way to the doom and gloom palace. A moment later, Itachi was smoothly at Hari's side. He was curious, just like everyone else.

"Have to send the summons back to their place." Harry said when the silence got uncomfortable.

"Hnn." Itachi replied back.

Itachi's eyes instantly took the shape of a kaleidoscope, seeing a line greeting them on their arrival. It was strange seeing them play with his mind like this. Like they had a direct connection with strings attached that they could play it to their fancy.

"Ah, shit." Harry cursed silently. Somehow, they had known that it was their time to go back and there was no way they were going to go back. "Can you keep them busy for a while. I have to draw run..er...something up to channel chakra and shit."

As soon as Harry bent down, they all move forward as one. Instinctively, Itachi's sharingan spewed out the black flames of Ametratsu, trapping the Dementors inside a ring of fire.

"Whoa. Did that fire come out of your eyes?" Harry said looking at the swirly eyes. He was about to get back to drawing runes, but stopped when he saw Dementors do something peculiar.

"Are they really touching that flames?" Harry whispered, bewildered. Even he knew something like black flames were bad no matter what.

"Wait. They _like_ touching the flames...?" He added at the mindboggling site of Dementors rubbing their hands together after putting them on the flames. "The fuck is happening here. I can't even..." Harry turned to see a contemplative Itachi. "How long do this flames burn?"

"For eternity, until the purpose is fulfilled." Itachi replied back smoothly, not taking eyes of the figures ahead.

"But what if, the purpose of the flames was to burn for eternity." This time, Itachi did turn to look at Harry, who maintained a sober face.

"Hnn." Itachi replied back because Itachi never admitted to getting caught in his lie.

"Keep some of the flames for them, would you? Help them take their mind off other things." And so, what Harry had perceived to be a Herculean undertaking which would probably leave him weak for few days was completed within an hour with new insights on the ancient creatures.

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading. I have some doubts about the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, can an EMS copy say, Ametratsu? Or the power it does not have? PM me the answer. Much appreciated!


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I have been super busy. Sorry for the wait. On the plus side, I have parts of the next chapter ready. Fingers crossed for a timely update!

Recap: Leaf takes back shinobi's captured by Hari. Hiruzen meets Harry and their missing-ninjas. A deal is reached to assist Village Hidden in the Mist with their 'Kage' problem.

* * *

The crew under the Hokage walked at a respectful distance from their leader - a fortunate event that no one could see the conflicted expression on Hiruzen's face. The meeting with this new leader had helped him in knowing his ambitions and goals. That was not what alarmed him. The monsters around him, these absolute beasts of power that Hari did not seem to get, troubled him more.

Itachi's solemn figure still danced in his mind. He was glad that he seemed lighter, as if, he had come to terms with that painful ordeal. But on the other hand, this was not a conflicted Itachi anymore. He seemed sure of what he did, almost as if he knew what lay ahead and how to proceed and that he had not shared his plans with him.

Orochimaru too seem happier and composed. It was troubling to see him not looking and analyzing everything about them. Hiruzen knew Orochimaru well and this raised alarm bells in his mind. To not care about _Danzo,_ spoke volumes. What was it that had captured Orochimaru's attention so, that he didn't see fit to be bothered by them.

He feared that this was the first out of a whole can of worms. If his lot were so leveled up, what did it say of those from other villages? Granted that his village produced some of the finest shinobi the Five Great Villages had known he had to remind himself that others were of similar strength and caliber.

Hiruzen stopped in his tracks and so did the crew.

'It is time for parted flock to come back in the fold.' He thought as he turned around. Letting his eyes linger on the wounded soldiers he had brought back, he turned to face ANBU. A couple of handsigns later, the two had parted ways. Hokage's personal guard accompanied him to his yet unknown destination while the rest, albeit reluctantly made their way back to the village.

* * *

The moment Gai stepped into the gates of Konoha, he could feel his strength returning. So pumped up with his invigorated strength; he was off to the nearest training field; what followed after is anyone's guess. If Shinobi's felt intimidated by Gai before, they were thrown out of the loop when they saw his new training regime. Taking certain liberties with his philosophy of Taijutsu style only, he mixed it up with enhancing his chakra nature which unsurprisingly was, Earth-Style.

"Take rest, Lee." Gai motioned to his most youthful student in which he saw making of a fine shinobi and Taijutsu master. "One day you will match me." He said energetically, his teeth giving out sparkles. "But today is not that day!" He gave a victory pose and ran straight ahead to complete two more laps around Konoha. A new day had just begun and for Gai it was just another one to perfect his body, mind and chakra on the task at hand.

For Kakashi, it was a whole different story.

* * *

Kakashi couldn't bear to go outside for anything. Part of the reason was the Mangekyo, which drained his chakra reserve and part because well, what was the point? This existence had never looked so pointless as it did now. And so, everything had become just that.

A choice.

To eat food or not to? What was the point?

To persevere or to give up? What was the point?

To breathe or not to...

A month had gone by, just surviving and not listening to his mind. His body demanded sustenance and so he provided. No one ever thought of checking at his clan's compound and in this basement it was just him, right where his father had decided to end it. The walls and the floors spoke a story of their own. The faded wallpaper and the kunai marks on the hard floor board spoke about a time where father had just begun his training. The silence made him able to focus more on this than the loudness that awaited him outside.

"Do you know the proper way to hold a kunai, Kakashi?" Sakumo asked as he gave the toy kunai to his only son. After a few experimental grips, Kakashi's tiny hands settled firmly on the handle adjoining the triangular wooden piece.

"The proper way..." Sakumo said taking the kunai from his hand, "And the only way is with firm resolve. What is the kunai going to do? Is it supposed to hit the target or protect you from a lethal blow. Or is it to deflect something from your path. Kakashi, the proper way to hold the kunai is with conviction." With Mangekyo, Kakashi's recollection of past events had become prefect. His brain took in way too much information than it should and the collective effort drained him. He couldn't remain conscious for more than 6 hours.

The voices echoed in the dark chamber underground. It was a start of an arduous battle that would take all of his effort to give that one last push. The real test though, lay when he would step outside - where the birds chirped like his chidori.

* * *

"Mei... Are you considering going through with this?" It was the first time she heard Ao without mishearing her most trusted aide.

Dealing with Orochimaru was preferable to this vague terms set forth by Hari.

In the later conversations, Hari had zeroed in on what he meant and expanded further on what was expected by them but the open-ended wording made the pair uncomfortable. The last conversation was the most troubling to them.

-FlashBack-

"So it is done then. You promise to trade freely with us, within reasonable limits that are not limited to a particular sector of goods and services." Harry said with a hint of satisfaction.

"Yes, within reasonable limits. Just to be clear about your earlier point regarding free movement of shinobi's across border of two region. You mean to say that shinobi's can move in from your village to ours." Mei said.

"And yours to ours." Harry added.

"But they can still go back to Village Hidden in the Mist, if they want to?" Mei stressed.

"Yes." Harry replied.

"This seems acceptable. Our final concern is with your assistance in overthrowing the present Mizukage. What numbers are we talking about?"

"Well, there's me." Harry said scratching his chin. He hadn't really asked anybody about this. Although he had approval for the Jonin exam setup, he had yet to do something about this. "Zabuza is another. What about you, Orochimaru? Will you be coming?"

"I don't know Hari-san." Orochimaru said dryly. "I'll have to check if I'm free."

"Ah, well. Itachi might be interested. I'll ask Deidara and see if he's in the mood. Who else might be willing?" Harry's casual acceptance made Orochimaru fume more. He had hoped denying his support would have an effect on Hari but it seemed that grasping Hari's idiosyncrasies was beyond him.

"I will join you to eradicate this vile human, Hari-Sama. It will be a matter of great privilege to see you take him down." Norimo bowed deeply.

"So that's three." Hari sighed.

"Three." Mei stated blankly.

"It's not much but we'll deliver. Of that you can be sure. You have my word."

-FlashBack End-

Mei turned back to see her camp settle down for the night. She was prepared and so were they. Could they take Yagura down without their help? Probably. But it was always better to have some backup just in case.

"We have to kick that murderer out anyways. Any help is appreciated." Mei said shrugging. The help the rebel faction was receiving from Big-Five was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it kept them motivated to overthrow the bloody regime but on the other, it kept them fighting. The more they fought with each other, the less they were focused on what the other four were doing. It seemed that this leader, Hari wanted peace and he did not come across someone of a mindset as the other nations had. Much more nonchalant, yes, which served to tick her off but not like them. Hari was different, although what kind of different remained to be seen.

"We accept the contract. Deliver the message." Mei said turning to her most trusted adviser/bodyguard.

* * *

It was a familiar sight back in the Village of Missing Ninja. Harry sat at one end of rock, surrounded by ninjas by the campfire. Marshmallows were turning brown and everyone was waiting for Hari to say something that would get the conversation going.

"So a deal was cut between Village Hidden in the Mist and me." Harry said. "There is certain someone who has been a right pain throughout the time I formed this village. That however pales in comparison to what he has done to other villages; especially the Hidden Mist Village. I have verified this through my contacts." Harry's eyes lingered on Itachi. "This man is now working with the Kage of that village. We will be taking them out."

"We?" Orochimaru asked politely.

"Anyone who wishes to join me. There is no reward waiting when you finish that mission, although some of you have a personal stake in this fight." Itachi's charcoal eyes shone red for just an instant, while Zabuza's face sported a determined look. Ao, too looked solemn. "Anyone who wishes to join is welcome but I will see to it that they will not become a liability. I will depart one week from the day Tsuchikage comes and collects his shinobi - which is two weeks from today and make no mistake - I will deliver his head." Harry turned to Ao as he spoke that last bit.

"That bitch is going down." Harry said between gulping down the crispy marshmallow.

* * *

Early morning saw Hari standing at the center of the battle stadium. He was dressed in the battle gear with the most advanced piece of technology covering his essential parts. The torso was covered with a deceptive soft cloth. His legs were covered with tough, thick fabric that could in theory withstand a grenade. In an age of explosive kunai's and paper bombs, this would cover any and all explosions.

"Oh good. You are here." Harry beamed as he saw Haku. He had no idea that Haku was waiting since an hour. There was an awkward silence as Haku just smiled and stood there. "So... Uhh. You are going to be support of Zabuza, right?"

Haku nodded.

"Alright." Harry sighed and added, "Lets just start with basic taijutsu and wait for others to arrive."

It was then that Orochimaru arrived in his patented dress.

"Come on then. Hit me with all you've got." Harry said as Haku stood to the side of Orochimaru, opposite to Hari. As Hari took the basic stance, he failed to see Orochimaru's sadistic smile.

"Oh wow." Harry said between dodging punches and kunai swipes from the Sanin. The last one had managed to cut a lock of his hair. "I thought this was only Taijutsu!" Harry said, excited and nervous at the rapid handsigns that Orochimaru was doing.

"We are ninja, Hari-San. Everything is permitted." With that, he expelled a gigantic ball of fire.

Deidara looked up and saw giant ball of fire fill up an entire stadium.

"Must eat more." His said as his mouths gobbled up more clay. He was late for the meet but he knew he had to "beef up" for the fight that lay ahead. He had to carve out a legacy for him and running out of explosive clay was not a way to do that.

"You people are not playing around are you?" Harry asked rhetorically.

"Was there any doubt, Harry-San." Orochimaru had yet to break a sweat. Harry on the other hand, was panting with exertion. While Haku had not been active to tag-team with Orochimaru, he made sure to not give any openings to him.

"No." Harry said, putting his weight on the sword. "Good work, Haku!" Harry gave a thumbs-up a sword gave off a shine in the distance. Instantly, Harry closed his stance with the sword placed vertical to his body.

CLANG!

A heavy blade skidded off the ground and came to rest near Haku.

"Come here, Haku. Let's show him what we've got!" Zabuza said. To a spectator in the stands, the three elite were poised with their respective legendary swords.

"Oh man." Harry said as the fog covered the entire stadium.

* * *

"Well, what is it?" Tsunade replied tipsily. ANBU usually left some messages from Kage of the Leaf Village and there wasn't any reason why this would be any different.

"The Hokage has a message for you." A voice drifted behind the animal mask.

"As long as I don't have to step in to a shinobi village, go ahead." Tsunade ordered as she slammed another glass down. The ANBU parted to make way for Hiruzen.

"Come back to the village, Hime." Hiruzen said softly.

Words died at Tsunade's mouth when she looked up to see the Hokage. There was a moment's silence when she looked down with a hint of sadness and then, she replied.

"I wouldn't come back to that village if you begged, old man." There was a gasp from the far end of the table where Sizune stood but Tsunade paid no attention to it. Nor was she interested in making eye contact with her only close relative.

Hiruzen, in his uncharacteristic way, bent down to meet her eyes and repeated.

"Please, Tsunade. Come back to the village." Sizune's mouth was wide open. To disrespect the Hokage with that tone was not like of Tsunade. She couldn't stand watching her village leader do something so humiliating.

"No." Tsunade's voice cracked and her will wavered.

"Please." Hiruzen said as he held her palms into his.

* * *

"KAKASHI! MY ETERNAL RIVAL!" Gai landed just ahead of him and turned to give him a quick hug. It was almost a month since they had seen each other and Gai looked much better than his rival. He surely had him beat over there.

"It seems the flames of YOUTH are now stoked!" Gai enthused. "What do you say to an energetic challenge, huh KAKASHI!" His eyes shone with anticipation.

"What about a race?" Gai said, taking a pose.

"No." Kakashi whispered as his focus wavered. The sounds were getting to him now. The sound of birds chirping like his chidori.

"Then how about a good Taijutsu match?" Gai back-flipped to face Kakashi. His chakra was now out of his control, transforming his chakra to lightning nature.

"Still have that hip and cool attitude, Kakashi." Gai said with a bit of nostalgia. "I am glad that the place has not changed you that much."

'Glad huh.' Kakashi thought. 'Happy. For me.'

"You have no idea." Anger filled Kakashi and the switch went off in his head. He would make him feel all that he felt. All the while Gai was busy enjoying this wretched existence. For a moment, Kakashi looked at the smiling face of Gai, and then, he charged.

* * *

'Come back soon, old man.' Jiraya said as he filled out another form in triplicate. He was ashamed to admit that he now was getting proficient in doing this. It made him feel with dread that this was the going to be permanent. He had begged off getting briefed about the top secret missions and protocol that only a Kage would know. To know that was tantamount to be declared a full-kage.

Nothing note-worthy had happened since that incident and everything was boring and dull - something a Kage would appreciate in the long scheme of things. Jiriaya, however had hot blood pumping in veins and then some. He could not wait to get out of the comfortable chair and out for some real action.

BOOM!

"Alright!" Jiraya jumped out of this chair and fist-pumped high. Really, Jiraya was not the Hokage material.

* * *

The sound of blades clashing against one another filled the stadium. Every now and then, there would be gnashing of the weapons as well as distinct sound of kunai 'pinging' against some sort of shield but the fog around the stadium had put a damper on shinobi's gathered to view the intense fight between Hari and the elite shinobi.

Harry's limbs were now aching and was tired on the mental task of holding an alert state for so long. Just as he parried another attack and send Zabuza flying back with a strong kick to his midsection, he came across a pair of red eyes glowing in the fog.

"Oh Shit." That summed up the situation nicely. Harry retreated to the far end of the stadium and cast a human scrying spell. The figures all glowed in his mind, providing an accurate map of what lay ahead.

'Lets banish the smoke to start an attack'. He thought and then paused. 'On second thought, I should collect the fog and use it to my advantage.' With that in mind, twirled his wand in anti-clockwise direction letting the fog get suck into a vacuum.

"Really, Hari-kun. How do you expect to take on a whole village if you can't keep up with us?" Orochimaru said with a sickly sweet voice.

"I can step up my game." Harry said cautiously. "But..." He looked around trying to see something. "I don't think this place can take it. And frankly, it's supposed to be a training exercise. I'd rather not kill any of you just because..."

Ninjas tightened their grip on kunai, barely suppressing their anger. It was an insult of highest degree when someone would patronize them like that.

"Really, Hari-kun. We will keep up. Just make sure you can." Orochimaru said, poised to attack at the signal - A sentiment shared by the four of them.

"Alright." Hari said.

BOOM. BLAM! BOOSH! BAM! BAM! BAM!

"Dammit! Deidara! You're late!" Harry shouted as he was flung by the bombardment.

* * *

"You're late, Sensei." Jiraya said with solemnly.

"I had full confidence in your abilities to rule the village." Hiruzen said and his lips twitched a little, "The village is still standing. Good job."

Jiraya sweat dropped at the teasing and his ANBU did too. For different reasons. It was a miracle that the village was still standing considering the terrible fight between to monsters. Jiraya had the presence of mind to seal the place down, so that the destruction would not have that big of an effect on the whole village than just Forest of Death and few training grounds surrounding it. But, Jiraya had not helped the matters one bit when he calmly ordered ANBU down and let the two duke it out. It was only in the end where Jiraya had come to his senses and let ANBU charged in.

Tenzo still had nightmares of the two monsters standing against one another. A green beast on one side while a big humanoid warrior on another. After suppressing the battle that day, Tenzo had demanded a pay raise. He was paid too little if this was to be a regular occurrence. Thank Kami, that both were alive and unharmed.

An immense weight lifted off of Jiraya's shoulder. Tsunade, incredulous of the _mature_ look of Jiraya watched it slowly transform back to the goofy, slightly mischievous nature that she was incredibly familiar with. It was like watching a caterpillar turning to a butterfly - a pervy butterfly who would now peek in to women's side of hot-steam!

"Come, Tsunade." Hiruzen said and she followed, back to the Hokage Tower.

"Woohoo!" Jiraya said as his nostrils flared and took in a great breath. He was free!

* * *

After Deidara's assault, the fight had quickly wound up. Orochimaru would like to blame that foolish boy for _momentarily_ distracting him but the giant snake had come out of nowhere. And just when Orochimaru thought he had this in the bag, his own snake, Manda just bowed down to Hari's!

Now he was held upside down by some invisible string that refused to let go of him and after a full five minutes of Harry gloating over him, he was happy that Zabuza's turn was next.

"You think I couldn't put a rabbit out of this hat! Huh!" Harry gloated over a thoroughly bound by an incarcerous. "Your game is weak, man! Trying to get away with shit a real ninja wouldn't do! You better bring your A-Game in the next training session, Momochi! Or you'll be gogochi!"

Orochimaru sighed. In the hindsight, Zabuza had it coming with all the sledging he had done to Hari.

"Good job, Haku." Harry said at the end seeing Haku was patiently standing besides Zabuza.

There was an awkward silence as Haku just nodded. Harry then turned his sights towards Itachi, who was patiently observing a bird in his hands.

"It's real and alive." Itachi's penetrating gaze seemed to question Harry.

"Not the time to really question things like that, Itachi." Harry said as his conjured bird sat patiently in Itachi's hands. Although, Itachi had escaped any and all attacks that Harry had dished out. Itachi just stood there, unruffled and not-bothered by anything going around him.

"Come with me, Deidara. I'll have to give you a potion to rid you of those slugs." Deidara was belching out explosive slugs out of his three mouths.

* * *

Hiruzen was back at his desk going through the reports Jiraya had approved and overseen. Contrary to popular belief in his village, Jiraya did do his reports properly. The door opened and closed with a silent click.

"Kakashi." Hiruzen said calmly. "Effectively immediately, you are no longer part of ANBU. You are re-assigned to teach Team 7. Be there tomorrow at 9 am sharp. Dismissed!"

With that, Sarutobi Hiruzen was back to work. Such was the work of the Hokage. No matter how trustworthy Jiraya was, he still had to double-check everything.

* * *

Ommake:

Missing-Ninjas gathered, quick to set camp across their village's perimeter. Considering the sudden war that had occurred, and under Orochimaru's tutelage, their response was quick and precise. There was no room for error.

A lone figure stood at the other side of the village. He had swim-suit glasses and was of dark complexion. The only recognisable trait was that of the two swords-handle that pointed up from his shoulder. His hands twitched at intervals but apart from that, he stood calmly at the gate.

"What is he doing?" A non-descript soldier said nervously. The twitching and slight movement of the man's hands made him weary of some jutsu.

Tensions melted away when Hari - their most glorious and awesome leader walked out of the gate.

'Ooo yeah. Here come's the big bad Hari.'

'But if he messes with me, he'll be sorry.'

"Ooo yeah." Killer Bee thought in his head bounced with the beats.

 _Focus Bee._ The monster Ox whispered in his ear.

"What can I do for you, Mr...?" Harry said calmly.

"Name's Killer Bee, representing Rai-Kage.

Here to collect my shinobi's, Mr. Nu-kage!

Here's the scroll of payment and here's the contract

Now let go of prisoners, fast-track!"

'Ooo Yeah.'

Harry caught both the two scrolls and eyed them for a moment.

"Alright, wait here. I'll bring them to you." Harry didn't wait for a response. He wanted the prisoners out of his village as quickly as possible. They had started to recover, since Dementors were not present. Harry had to close the lax infrastructure to ensure they could not just walk out. Timed runes helped out a lot here as they deposited they prisoners back to their cells.

-Some Time Later-

The prisoners were all lined up, for Killer Bee to check.

"The way to village is long, so wait;

Get yourselves get checked out by that gate!

Fools, ya Fools!"

And that was it. Harry watched the strange man guide their people back to the outer gate where he knew a 3 teams of Cloud Shinobi were waiting patiently.

"That was very weird." Harry said to Orochimaru. Orochimaru on the other hand, was having a hard time coming to term what had just transpired. Every visit with Kage had been tense and there was a real chance of fight to break out. But here, when there was an obvious insult, there was a smooth transition of things.

'Why is it that this man is so hard to predict?!' Orochimaru fumed as he saw the retreating figure of the Village's leader.

* * *

A/N: I had trouble writing fight scenes. I shudder to think of managing an entire war that will feature in coming chapters. The next chapter will feature the incumbent Kage meeting the deadly Missing-Nin force! Sauske and Itachi shall have a brief-long meeting(if you catch my drift).


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Yeah. I'm late. I was catching up on final seasons of Naruto. I had stopped watching after the Ninja-War and didn't know what happened. Plus, there is a small inconsistency with the timeline of the story. I've fixed it as best I could. Next chapter will take time, but you can expect it in the next two months. Enjoy!

* * *

Orochimaru sighed once again, as he lay down, tired and out of the fight. To be fair, there were only two of them left after Harry had gone through each of them by turn. They fought like a team but Harry had steamrolled the fight, letting him choose the terms of engagement. As Orochimaru watched Itachi and Hari killing each other repeatedly, presumably a layered Genjutsu over everyone. It was at times like this that reinforced his belief that he had made the right decision of staying in this village. Shinobi's here stretchedi the limits - including reality itslef. The greatest asset a shinobi had was his mind and what a waste it would be if he didn't transcend its limitations.

It was fascinating to watch how mind could be ensnared by chakra. He saw figures of Itachi and Hari clash and stabbed that was enough to kill any shinobi but the two of them just disappeared in smoke.

'What is real?' Orochimaru asked himself as he watched the nth attempt at silent assassination and Itachi burst into a murder of crows.

'If mind is no longer to be trusted, what is the ultimate tool to test the foundations or reality?' Such questions made the burn in him brighter. This was why he hadn't stayed in the safe confines of Leaf Village. In moments like this, Hari and Itachi made him try harder to attain that ever elusive goal of perfection.

Harry made him question life while Itachi made him question his mind.

"Wait, what?" Harry said out loud seeing the form of Itachi lying in pool of blood after being slashed and stabbed. "Was that the final iteration?"

Itachi nodded shakily as he took labored breaths.

"Shit! Haku!" Harry gave a shout and the three of them disappeared out of stadium.

* * *

Haku spied Itachi as he went about doing his business - which consisted of mostly sitting and staring at the moon. No one knew what went inside Itachi's head but it did give a mysterious persona that women found incredibly alluring. It didn't help the matters in the least that both of them gave off angst on a harmonic frequency.

'He does not have a T-Shirt to wear.' Haku concluded seeing Itachi sat on a cold rock, letting the cold breeze flow across his naked torso. Haku now had a new goal - to gift Itachi Uchiha a T-Shirt without letting him know who gave it to him.

As Haku disappeared, Itachi's eyes stayed on the moon.

'How is it that moon has these circular spots?' Itachi thought as he peered through his Sharingan at the moon.

* * *

The crew was engaged in its nightly ritual - sitting by the fire and eating marshmallow. All of them seemed to be busy with their own thoughts and there was unsaid agreement that marshmallows were to be enjoyed in silence.

Orochimaru's tongue stretched across the white stuff trying to squeeze the taste in. He liked it this way, just a bit hot and that marshmallow would stay white but warm when he gulped it down.

"So what's the plan, Hari-San." Orochimaru asked seeing no one was interested in semantics.

"Same old. Tomorrow morning at 7. Itachi, you coming to it right?" Harry glanced sideways to find Itachi's arm hanging outside, at level of his chest. The torn part of his black T-Shirt had yet to be sewn back together.

"No. I mean, a plan for invasion." Orochimaru butted in before the conversation could be drawn out to various proclamations of 'I'm going to beat your ass' and 'you weaklings holding me back' etc.

"Oh that." Harry paused as he took a bite off the golden marshmallow. "We go in and kill Mizukage. He is a... well, a small boy but don't be fooled by his.. er.. height.

"Hmm." Everyone nodded in agreement, except Orochimaru. He blinked twice, not comprehending the words coming out of Hari's mouth.

"So, we go through the Land of Waves and through the small islands till we reach the capital?" Orochimaru questioned.

"Hmm. Yeah going through territory of Kumo seems troubling. That's a good route." Harry said scratching his chin. Orochimaru, seemed more uncertain than before.

"So few of them go from the front while few attack from behind?" Orochimaru asked, thinking of tactics and what-not.

"No. We go in from the front and we attack!" Harry said clenching his hand to a fist. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"The land of Whirlpool offers a perfect opportunity to attack from behind. No one patrols that area anymore." Orochimaru calmly offered his advice.

"What's with you sneaking from behind, yeah." Deidara spoke, irritated. "We are going to attack! They will see the beauty of my Art!" The raucous agreement that followed Deidara's words made Orochimaru sigh.

"Hari-San. We need a plan of attack." Orochimaru said concerned.

"I have a plan. Attack." Harry replied smoothly.

Among the loud cheer going on, no one noticed a black/white shaped humanoid vanishing into the ground.

* * *

The battle that followed that morning was more vicious than anything the stadium had ever seen. Orochimaru, angry at the casual attitude of Hari grew more vicious in his attacks. For the first time, he was no longer interested in seeing what Jutsu's Hari-San had up his sleeves. He just wanted to punch the guy right in the face!

Itachi had, for the time, given up on using genjutsu and was using his ninjutsu arsenal. Over the time, Itachi had collected a lot of techniques and he began to use it to his full advantage. Deidara had enough of the whole lot and was now more precise and mathematical of using targeted attacks that would cause the most damage. It was a beautiful sight to see, seeing the resonance of the dropped bombs.

Zabuza was more cautious and precise with his attacks. He and Haku worked like a well oiled machine. Their style of combat was pure attack while each would cover for other's defense. A marked improvement with them was them seeing attacks and try to co-ordinate with them. For a while before, there would be multiple attacks and because of no-coordination they would fail.

"What crawled up their asses today?" Harry said with a bit of smile and irritation. They were like flies - to quick to dodge and hover around, refusing an opportunity of him to attack.

"Enough of this!" Harry said authoritatively. "Summoning!"

A great basilisk appeared with a puff of smoke and a paralyzing killing intent blasted throughout the stadium. If a civilian was in the near vicinity of this snake, the poor thing would die from pure-unadulterated fear. As such, the ninjas were quivering where they stood. Itachi's breath hitched and almost spontaneously, chakra began flowing through his eyes -The heavenly eyes saw the truth of all of creation without obstruction, making Itachi speak the two profound words.

"Almighty Push!" The snake skid back, a little.

"You can manipulate gravity?" Harry asked, incredulous. The ninjas surrounding Itachi were surprised for a different reason. The sharingan had mystic powers beyond their imagination. Orochimaru grew jealous of the amazing power of the eyes that were bestowed by gods on the ninja world. His only solace was that he was closer to immortality than ever before and thus he could wait to grab that power, if he wanted.

Harry was surprised for a different reason in part due to implications of such power. If you controlled gravity, you controlled time.

* * *

"Halt!" The command was obeyed by the unknown shinobi without question. Not that the shinobi had any intention of doing something reckless. He was the cautious sort; observing the politics of the five nations and its effect on the minor villages.

"State your purpose and intent!"

"My purpose is to collect captured shinobi on behalf of my leader, Misu-kage. My intent is to take them away safely where they belong." The shinobi said as he lowered the cape.

"Nu-Kage – Sama is busy at the moment. I will bring them to you." Normio replied calmly and extended his hand.

The shinobi, gave scroll for inspection.

"Hmm. Wait here."

As the shinobi waited patiently, he looked around the walls and protections of the village. He recognised some structures from the intel report he had gathered for this meeting while other things were different. Some were blatantly false. The walls surrounding the village had disappeared, replaced by trenches. The guards were no longer patrolling by the ground. They were up in a stone palace with various fortifications like that of Kunai-launcher.

"Here you go." Norimo said quietly. "Pardon the state of these shinobi's." He said without the slightest hint of regret.

'Good.' The shinobi thought, 'It will be easier for me to subdue them.'

"My thanks to Hari-San, for quick release of the prisoners." With that, the shinobi was off.

* * *

"Okay!" Harry clapped his hands to see the whole company was present. "I see everyone is packed and ready. Good." Harry commented at the battle-readiness of the group."

'6 people in all'. Harry thought to the tradition of powerful numbers. Six was hardly a powerful number. He wished he had one more.

"Okay, Norimo. You know what to do. Bye-Y'all!" Harry waved cheerily and the group was off.

* * *

"Hey, Hey! Iruka-Sensei!" The blond-loudmouth exclaimed loudly. "Give me a good mission!"

"NA-RU-TO!" Iruka said, with gritted teeth. They were seating with the Hokage but it seemed Naruto would not be able present himself properly. "Behave!"

"Jiji! No more D-Ranks! Please!" Naruto said and felt a fist smack on his head.

"Ow... Sakura-chan is so mean..." He mumbled and then straightened.

"Emm.. Hokage-Jiji. I request that you give a C-Rank to my team." Naruto said bowing his head.

...

..

.

Sarutobi Hiruzen's pipe clanked on the desk. 'Minato. If you could look at your son right now. He has grown.'

"Team-7. You have got your first C-Rank Mission." Hiruzen said with a smile.

"See! See! Iruka-Sensei. I told you I could behave." Naruto said with his hands behind his head.

"See Sakura-Chan. Kakashi-Sensei! I told you! This will be an awesome C-Rank. Then I'll be doing B-Rank! Then I'll be doing A-Rank! AND THEN I'll BE THE HOKAGE! BELIEVE IT!" Kakashi's hand spread across Naruto's head, in effort to calm the excitement in the room. ANBU were not used to such loudness.

* * *

"We will stop here, for the night?" Harry trailed off with a question. The woods had a small clearing, good enough to stop for the night. The band of ninjas looked around and each gave their consent.

"Who will take the first watch, Hari-San?" Orochimaru asked calmly. 'Did this man even have an idea of how to control a team? What plan did he have for the night?'

"No need for anyone to take any kind of watch. We all will need our strength for the battle ahead." Harry said quietly and lay down his back-pack. It was strange for a shinobi to see someone carry things in a back-pack. All the things needed by a shinobi were either up their sleeves or in a small pouch. You only carried items in a back-pack that were very important and no shinobi liked to have a large target painted on their back.

Plus, Harry's back-pack was weird. It had more straps and Hari was constantly adjusting various buckles and what-not.

"Umm." Harry said, looking at the shinobi choosing their own place to lay down. "I've got a tent."

Shinobi's who were about to lay down paused to see Hari-San pull up a tent from the backpack. It looked like a two-man tent which led them to wonder how were all of them going to fit inside. It didn't make sense for the team to sleep inside together. One could just torch the place and be done with it. The distributed system was the preferred mode of any group related activities.

A look passed between each ninja and Zabuza shrugged his shoulders and went in. Haku trailed quietly behind him. Orochimaru's yellow eyes stared intensely at Harry to understand this illogical, foolish endeavor.

A moment passed before Zabuza, Haku came out and walked around the periphery of the tent before giving a final shrug and going in. Itachi was next, and he too came out looked at the tent with his sharingan blazing and then stepped inside.

Orochimaru was stunned to see everyone do the exact same thing and curiosity burned in him. As he stepped inside, the warm orange glow brushed over his body and his eyes widened seeing the two storey space inside.

"It's bigger from the inside, yes." Harry beamed at Haku and patted his head. "Why don't you freshen up and I'll serve dinner." Harry said pointing upstairs.

'It's bigger from the inside.' Orochimaru's mind screamed, 'GENJUTSU!' But Itachi had his sharingan activated. Surely, he would've broken this illusion if it were true? Why were other ninjas so accepting of this fact?

'It's bigger from the inside,' Orochimaru's mind stuttered again. 'It's bigger... from the inside...'

* * *

Ommake: Reason for Deidara's marked improvement.

For a while now, Didara's focus and motivation had been to cause maximum attack and enjoy the transient moment between the noise and silence. In that movement, he found his self-expression and beauty. That infinitesimal time gave him meaning and purpose.

Now as he demonstrated to bunch of Mis-Genin with Hari present, he didn't understand why it never elicited a response that he had always wanted from his audience. Hari had always been appreciative of his Art, but most of them didn't get it. He didn't understand why people didn't see beauty in his Art. He had perfected his art to cause maximum damage. when he exploded tiny bombs in resonant progression.

Sensing his discomfort, Harry called Deidara aside.

"You need to see this." Harry said without any preamble. Diedara grabbed the headset, and the slim, black-brick without question. Hari-San had the most curious gadgets. Everything was different about them, from T.V that was more like a slim wall to what he had seen back in his former-village. They were more like a un-even shaped boxes. The customized headset had a strange triangle shape on them unlike most of standard headsets. Pictures began to move from the black-brick that didn't surprise Deidara anymore.

There was a lady that had sparks coming of off her. She was saying something and Diedara could suddenly understand it.

"You just got to ignite... the light... and let it shine..." It was here that he understand something fundamental about beauty and Art.

"Boom...Boom...Boom... Even brighter than the moon... Moon... Moon." Anime tears flowed down his cheek.

Harry poked his chest and Deidara looked up, his eyes shining.

"When you attack somebody, attack with this beat in mind." Harry said, turning something up and Deidara felt the "BEAT".

At night, when Deidara glanced at the moon in silence, he remembered the epic blast scene in which a short, man with funny hairstyle burned to crisp and eventually exploded in a flying machine. He had experienced a moment of zen.

"There are other songs in it, and feel free to experiment attack-patterns based on the "Beat Drops". Harry had said dismissively as he walked away. As Deidara now scrolled through an extensive list, he felt near to a higher purpose than he had before.

* * *

Ommake: The day of Hari's departure.

"Norimo. You take good care of village for the time I'm gone, alright?" Harry said holding shoulders, tightly. As Harry gave a hug, he whispered in Norimo's ear. "Consult the chart if there is any confusion." Harry emphasized.

"This shouldn't take long. You'll expect us back quickly." Harry said waving his hand giving a wave to the crowd gathered.

"Pfff." Orochimaru scoffed, quietly. There was no planning coming from the team or Hari. He had wondered if this was an elaborate trap to dispose him off but he hadn't uncovered any conspiracy. 'How.' Orochimaru thought. There was no coherent way to put in words for the puzzled nature of this action.

'Just how?' He thought again.

As the group turned, Harry waved the stick in the air.

"Just letting our alliance know that we are departing." Harry said quietly.

 _RE-SAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!_

Harry seized up.

"What's wrong, Hari-San?" Orochimaru asked cautiously.

"You hear that?" Harry asked as he strained to hear that ominous tone.

*Chirp**Chirp**Chirp**Chirp*

"Huh." Harry said quietly. "I swear I heard a loud noise. Alright, lets-"

HHHHHAAAAA-REEEEE-SSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

"You don't hear that?" Harry asked, frantically looking around.

"We don't hear anything, Hari-San." Itachi said observing the sky.

"Just, give me a quick minute." Harry said as he jogged back to Norimo.

"Parchment." Harry asked, extending his hand. Norimo quickly obeyed. Harry made quick gestures and he came to the thing he was looking for.

Security Level:

 _Caution._

Harry looked down to at the end of the list where there was a word written: _Hogwarts._

This was the maximum level of security Harry had envisioned to be there in case of his absence for a long time. He shrugged his shoulders had touched the parchment. He sigils glowed for a moment and disappeared.

"Alright, new rule!" Harry said loudly. "No one can get IN for the time I'm not here. Once you go out, you cannot go in." Harry said authoritatively.

As the music continued to play in Harry's ear, he gave a casual shrug and was on his way. Let whomever wants to come, come here. He'll be pleasantly surprised.

* * *

A/N: A bit of filler, but I thought best to stop here. The next chapter is all action! Possibly a cliff-hanger! Let me know what you thought of the chapter and the Ommakes. Which one did you like more?


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Finally, the fated meeting of Hidden Leaf Shinobi in Wave as the awesome team heads for to take care of a problem in Mist Village! I have, however decided to break this story and this shall complete in two parts. Hence, you won't find much Naruto/Harry interaction till the next 3-4 chapters where I'll end this part. The next part shall however, detail almost exclusively on Naruto/Team 7 running into the feared leader of the village on almost all missions that Team 7 may embark upon.

* * *

"Man Hari. That was the best sleep I've had in a long time." Deidara gave a yawn from all three mouths. There were general murmur of agreement among all present.

Itachi looked a bit younger and Zabuza had a stupid look on his face as he sat down on the ground. Haku sat quietly besides him as he looked around in wonder. It was a perfect morning; birds were chirping happily and the sun had just peeked from the foliage.

It was a weird feeling for all present – a feeling they were not able to place where exactly it belonged. Veteran shinobis were used to feel comfort in familiarity and that was found only inside the security of the village. Harry had, purposefully not put the warding of "feeling secure" inside his village because it could cause the Missing-Ninjas to yearn for their home and could switch sides while they were living there.

"Don't get used to it, now." Harry said lightly as he brought various utensils out . "I use this tent only when I'm traveling for missions."

"Then we just need to take more missions together!" Deidara slammed his fist on his hand-mouth which was taking another yawn. "You name it, Hari-Sama. We will take over all five villages for you!" He exclaimed fervently.

The ninjas gathered around did not immediately reject Deidara's suggestion.

"Alright now. Let's have a heavy breakfast. We have to reach the border for the Mist Village today and there is a lot of distance to cover. We'll only stop for dinner at night."

Haku got up and gathered his tools. Other ninjas reluctantly got up as well. Breakfast was running around and wouldn't willingly be someone's meal.

Harry watched ninjas leave silently and he lit a fire to prepare some tea. It was some point afterwards when he spot Orochimaru looking around curiously that he got up. He was outside the boundary of the warding and Harry figured he had trouble figuring out the place he was seeing. Although, it was a feat of mental fortitude that he had been able to come this far.

Harry stood opposite to Orochimaru and looked at him for a bit. Orochimaru's yellow eyes flickered towards the side and it looked like he was trying to shake off a mental attack. With a flick of his wand, the ward dropped and their eyes met, briefly. There was uneasy silence as the two men walked silently back to where the pot was boiling.

"Say, Orochimaru. Can you say a phrase for me." Harry said quietly looking at the pot.

"Okay." Orochimaru replied, taking comfort in Hari-San's discomfort.

"Can you say, 'There is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it.'

Orochimaru repeated the statement blankly and looked back questioning the purpose of this test.

"Hmm." Harry kept his voice light. "Say it like you mean it."

"I don't."

"You don't... What do you mean? How would you put it?"

"Good and evil are just concepts in what we humans call morality. No, there is no good or evil of an act we can attribute to what animals do. Animals do as they please. They are not defined by morality; rather by instinct." Orochimaru said, his deep harsh voice brushing off the surrounding. "But we are greater than animals." Orochimaru pointed at the two skewered animals on his stick. "What should define us should be... truth."

"Truth?" Harry asked, trying to follow Orochimaru's line of thought.

"Yes. It's the single most attribute or pursuit that any person should have in life. Infact, that is the only purpose of life. All this conflict is meaningless and all this is without point if you don't have that final goal in mind." Orochimaru paused and then continued, "There is no good or evil, only truth - the singular pursuit in life."

"I like the sound of that." Harry said nodding.

It turned out that the rest of ninjas were looking for the campsite, but, due to the wards in place they were not able to find it. Thankfully, they soon arrived and enjoyed a large, bountiful breakfast.

"Alright. Let's pack up and be on the move. Next stop, Mist Village." The packing was surprisingly swift. Ninjas's dawned their battle gear with the sole exception of Itachi - who chose to wear a white T-shirt that had a surprising design on the front. Others chose not to comment on the choice of wear but Haku had the most adorable blush on her face. It was the T-Shirt that he had gifted to Itachi, after all.

* * *

Kakashi Hatake was ready for combat and looking forward to it. Why would he not when the opponent had managed to injure him with lightning chakra? His principles would not allow him to sacrifice any of his students and so, this was the price he had paid for the protection of his cute little students. Alas, Naruto had grown solemn seeing his Sensei take a hit for him and the rivalry that he had for his aloof teammate had only grown stronger.

All things considered, it was fortunate that the attack had exhausted his opponent as well and so, three vs one was still an equal odds that the enemy nin did not like. The week had passed, all the while the ninjas played cat and mouse; that is, cat leaving dead carcasses of mouse all around villages. His students were horrified, understandably but it was necessary for the team to see the realities of life. Alas, Sasuke had seen the reality too early but for the rest of the two, the time was appropriate to accept and learn.

Who knew that Naruto Uzumaki - the Number One unpredictable prankster was afraid of ghosts and forbid anyone talking about the deceased.

"You will know the strength that lies in connections." Kakashi thought as he peeked at them, lowering the book just a little. "Just as I did. From the lightest thought of comrades to the indomitable will to move mountains for them." He vowed as he pocketed the book. The wind that brushed through his electrified hair was just a tad cold and charged.

"Come on out, Kurosuki Raiga. You cannot hide from me." Kakashi said as he revealed the kaleidoscopic eye.

"Oh. I can." Raiga called through the thick smoke. "And I am right in front of you." He added mockingly. "Such an honor it is for me, for you to use the fabled dou-jutsu and yet, so utterly useless." Kakashi dodged the shuriken and looked around intently.

There was a faint quiver from the ground and Kakashi knew there was something massively wrong with the situation at hand. Had he forgot to look out for a partner? Was there some company that Raiga had brought that he didn't account for?

"Wind release: Great Breakthrough." Kakashi faltered seeing the smoke being dispersed. He knew that voice and he knew that man.

Kakashi turned his head around and wished he had chosen to abandon the mission altogether. Six, very recognizable ninjas were calmly walking forward without a care in the world. The mission was now bumped from an A rank to an SSS rank. Heck, he couldn't even label it correctly and there weren't enough 'S' to label this mission because at the center of the group, was _him._

Known throughout the nations for his hip and cool attitude and the new big nation leader was… Hari. If that wasn't enough, there were five more ninjas with him. Zabuza- The master swordsmen known far and wide for his battlelust and undisputed champion as far as swordsmanship was concerned. Mad bomber Deidara, reputed for his insane bombing now capable of destroying villages in a single explosion. Kinslayer Itachi- the cold hearted bastard who single-handedly destroyed his whole clan sparing only his little brother. His ocular abilities were unmatched to any other. Orochimaru- the immortal snake capable of withstanding any and all attacks without getting killed. His defensive abilities pissed people to no end. There was another figure, walking behind the group. Very little was known of her abilities except for extra-ordinary abilities in infiltration and people only knew her as Haku.

Kakashi immediately regrouped with his genin team. He wouldn't let his comrades get captured by them. Unknowingly, a small Susanoo formed around his group. He was like a cornered dog now; vulnerable but dangerous all the same. The group came to a stop and there was a moment of silence.

Kakashi could feel the blood pushing forward as his heart beat faster. He could feel it throbbing in his chest painfully hard.

"I will not let my comrades get captured by you." He said as he held two kunai's reverse grip.

"Heh! Look at this kid." Zabuza said. "He has those swirly eyes and thinks he's a match for us. Well Itachi's got two of them!" He said sounding satisfied with his argument.

Kakashi was didn't know what to do next. He was running out of chakra and was about to drop down. But unfortunately the choice was taken out of his hands.

"ITACHI! I'll KILL YOU!" Sasuke roared and charged out of the formation. Itachi grabbed hold of the wrist aimed straight to his heart and hoisted him up raising him to his eye level.

"Tsukoyomi." He said calmly, trapping him in his most devastating techniques.

The moment Itachi cast the genjutsu, he knew that Sasuke would never be a match for him. The Mangekyo, took a lot out of him when he cast this ocular jutsu. Freezing time to this extent, took all his chakra to do so. That's why, Itachi never did anything strenuous inside his own world.

But now, he felt the time trickle by at a snail's pace and he knew, _knew_ that this was the eternal Mangekyo's doing and there wasn't a thing in the world that Sasuke could do that would ever defeat him. He could hold it forever and in his own world his little brother would never stand a chance.

He gave a sigh and held the prone body in his arms. There was no need to incite any more hatred against him. The only way, Sasuke could now reach upto his level was if Itachi gave his eyes away willingly.

His heart throbbed as he held his little brother close. His mind, and eyes replayed the scenes from that fateful day, both relieving the moments together.

"I'm sorry little brother." Itachi said, caressing Sauske's hair. He had his guard down the words just flowed from his mouth. "Who's to judge, the right from wrongs of that day. I did the only thing I knew how to do best. I… I'm sorry that it had to be this way."

Images flew through his head, of the times he spent with his brother, both reliving the times that they had together, under the blood stained floor of the genjutsu world.

"You will need to understand the choices I had to make and for that you need to see through one's selfishness." Itachi said as he looked up to the red moon in his illusory world. "For that you need to mature. Hate will only take you so far; will only make you the most dangerous weapon but even the sharpest of swords need to be sheathed.

"Come find me brother. I will be waiting." Itachi said, tapping Sasuke's forehead with his two fingers and casting him to a deep sleep.

"Oye Itachi. ITACHI!" Harry shook Itachi for the nth time when Itachi finally blinked back. "Mess with that guy's head over there!" Harry pointed at the mad shinobi channeling lightning blades, fighting with Zabuza. "We need him on our side."

Itachi was gone in an instant leaving Harry to deal with Kakashi.

"Our side for what?" Kakashi asked cautiously. He had already collected Sauske the moment Itachi released him.

"We are taking over Kiri! YEAH!" Deidara punched his fists in the air smiling all the same.

"Umm. No. We are not taking over anything or anyplace. There is no hostile takeover of anything or anyform of any kind." Harry said quickly, waving his arms around frantically. "Deidara! Scan the surrounding from the sky!" Harry said angrily.

* * *

Itachi stood calmly looking at the swordsman and found him discretely eying his T-Shirt.

"Feh! What's that supposed to mean, hmm?" He snarled arrogantly. Itachi raised his right brow, exactly once centimeter higher. Could it work? He thought to himself.

"Keep calm and Mangekyo Sharingan?" He asked amusedly.

"Uh-huh. Having trouble keeping calm?" The swordsman mocked spewing pre-battle rhetoric.

"It's a special jutsu I've designed. First step is to calm yourself." Itachi said, exhaling out air and focusing and assuming a stance.

"And then?" Swordsmen asked, channeling lightning in his blades. His eyes made contact with Itachi.

"And then, Mangekyo Sharingan!" Itachi said satisfied.

"Urk!"

Everything happened too quick from that point. Itachi really had a knack for mind torture and no one knew how, but the man collapsed on his knees the next instant shaking his head as if, to clear something out.

Haku, collected a small boy, Muremaru residing inside the pot and tended to his injuries.

"I can't believe that actually worked." Harry said, amazed. He fished out a bag of ryo and handed over to Itachi acknowledging his loss.

"We have delayed enough." Harry said, looking over the fretting Haku taking care of the little boy. He could see the kindred spirit that both of them seem to have found in each other but it was time to move.

* * *

The group broke into cluttered arguments of who's going to do what and Deidara started looking at the bridge with a manical gleam in his eye. Harry knew his group of misfits shouldn't be left idle. An idle mind was a devil's workshop and nothing came more quickly to a shinobi's mind than being a devil's advocate.

"Okay! Move it. Haku double time!" Harry ordered and for a moment, everything was quiet. "Diedara! Go on ahead and scout us a secure route. You will take point up front in our conflict with Kiri." Deidara was gone in an instant but Harry was still a bit apprehensive of the direction he was headed in. Which was in the direction of the bridge.

"What should we do with this Hidden Leaf ninjas, Hari-kun." Orochimaru said in his sickly sweet voice. Arguments broke out again, of what to be done to the four-man squad from Hidden Leaf Village. Some of them were really convincing as well.

"Once again." Harry said straightening out his sleeves. "We are not taking over any village. We are just going there to meet the leader of village and then, we are coming right back." Harry said with conviction that could fool lesser beings. Kakashi gave a quick nod.

"But our plans shall be known to the Hokage through them." Zabuza chimed in, calmly brushing a kunai against his giant sword. That gathered a lot more approval, reducing the odds in an instant. The tense silence was broken by a very loud voice.

"I must say I'm… disappointed." A new voice from far out called out. There were hoards of people surrounding the man and he looked very confident.

The team looked at each other and a silent message passed amongst themselves. Each of them nodded their heads in synchronization.

"Go Gato." Orochimaru said, walking past a large group of bandits.

"Yeah. Midgit. Show them who's the boss." Zabuza said, smirking and walking past the large group.

"Kill them all." Raiga said walking with them.

"You can do it." Haku said, vanishing from the sight once he passed a few people.

"Go Gettho." Harry said, amused as he walked away with his team towards Kiri.

"Getto! Getto!" Harry sang, raising his hand in the air. The group chanted back.

"GET ON! GET ON!"

"Ride On! Ride On!"

"RIDE ON! RIDE ON!" It was an epic dance formation that moved ahead without once looking back.

Gato, raised his hand bolstered by the praise and found a silver haired ninja bowing deeply to him.

"I thank you deeply." Kakashi said and spoke next words with just as reverence. "And for that, your deaths will be swift and painless."

Gato chose to snarl and needless to say, that snarl was etched on his face as it was severed from his body.

* * *

Harry looked at the group formation as they approached the sea. He could see the tension develop and spread thinly in the group. Group dynamics were at play and the original group did not quite get how to function with a new addition, especially when the stakes were high. It didn't help matters when Reiga shot hostile glances at the group in general. It was clear from the body language that this could end up badly at the wrong time.

"Hmm Hmm Hm HmmHmmHmmHmm." Harry hummed and instantly Zabuza perked up. The rest of group joined in to murmur alongside.

"LaLaLa Laa Laa Laa Laa."

"LaLaLa Laa Laa Laa Laa." The electric guitar accompanied the rhythmic humming.

"Thunder!" Haku gave a shout. It was a known ritual that the group participated every once in a while.

"THUNDER!" Harry shouted and so did the group.

"THUNDER!" Raiga followed along, seeing the tribute given by the group to Lightning and gave off his best Lightning Release and it could be seen off in the Wave.

* * *

Kakashi tilted his head a little to see the lightning at the distant. It reminded him of his opponent that he was saved from fighting. What kind of world was this? Where Kakashi expected no help, it was revealed in unexpected ways and when he begged for help there was none to be found.

"You can... Open your eyes now." Kakashi said, breaking to a whisper mid-sentence. He was covered in blood and his cute genin students were facing the opposite directions with their eyes closed. "Well done, Sakura-chan; you followed orders to point. Wake me tomorrow, no matter what." Naruto and Sakura turned around to just in time to see Kakashi fall on them.

"You've got it, Sensei." Sakura said as they struggled to carry their team back to the Tazuna's house.

* * *

"Okay. Let me explain quickly a system of co-ordination that will enable us to be mindful of our attacks." Harry said loudly so that Deidara could also hear from above. The entire marshy land was quiet and lifeless making Harry's voice echo loudly all through the surroundings. The fog had seeped in which made it difficult to see at a distance. They were officially in the enemy territory now but so far, no one had graced themselves with their presence.

"I broadly classify five levels of attacks that you have to put yourself into. One, being of the lowest intensity to five being life-threating and potential unconsciousness. I know most of your attacks and so do you of mine and of each other. For example, Zabuza usually uses blades and I label them as on devastation scale - one. If he uses in conjunction with chakra and nature-transformation, Zabuza would call out a greater number depending on the amount of power that he would put into his attack." Harry turned to the newest member of the group to see if he was following along.

"As of now, I advise that each of us keep it less than, umm, lets say three." Harry nodded to himself and looked around. "I think we shall have plenty of opportunities to practice this system before we make an attempt to reach the main city, yeah?" Harry stopped and so did the group. The fog dispersed to reveal a group of five ninja walking towards them.

"You pathetic lot." A ninja in mask sneered as he spoke. "I could sense your chakra from a mile away." A second later, twenty-five such groups converged to their position.

"We have been warned by our leader that some ninjas are intent on crossing the border to start an invasion." The fearsome group was now surrounding the six men on the ground. "We hold advantage in all respect. We have the higher ground, we have the strength of numbers and even if some of you might be better, the odds of getting struck by deadly jutsu is skewed in our favor. Further units are on standby followed by the central command of War-General himself. Your pitiful attempt is so inconsequential that it will not even feature two lines in tomorrow's paper." The six men faced the groups high in the trees and on the ground, with their backs touching.

"And you want to overthrow, our leader?" He rumbled out a slow laugh. "Couldn't even mask your presence properly."

"Yea." Zabuza rumbled but Orochimaru took words out of his mouth. "Did you stop to consider, Mr. Soon-To-Die-San that, that just didn't bother with all of that?" There was a moment of silence that was broken by gratuitous violence.

* * *

"Heh. That was easy!" Raiga said as he shook off the blood from his swords.

"Only because I had dispersed aerosol gas that dumbed down their reaction time." Orochimaru remarked calmly.

"The fact that they didn't noticed you doing that, Orochimaru-San, was due to them getting caught in my Genjutsu." Itachi smoothly remarked, giving a soft smile. "This eyes, they see through all of creation, without obstruction." Sharingan red eyes whirled taking note of any leftovers.

"Can they see through these toads then, Itachi?" Harry asked calmly pointing at many toads that Harry had transfigured their opponents into. Itachi's smile slipped a little just had it been so for Orochimaru, and Raiga.

"Don't mind me up here." Deidara remarked calmly. "I didn't need to do anything because it was of too little a consequence."

"Let's move forward." Zabuza remarked. "There is no one victor here. However, I feel my duty to mention that I shall be killing most of Mizukage's shinobi."

"We shall see if that will be the case, Zabuza-San." Orochimaru remarked snipping.

"Indeed, Orochimaru-San." Itachi said out loud.

"Aww man." Harry sighed as he looked at the competition that had now begun. "The real talent lies in not killing the enemy. My work is clean and efficient." Harry hoped that their group would refrain from needless killing.

"Fuck that. This is ON!" Raiga remarked. "Mine is 10. Zabuza has eight. I'll be keeping tabs on everyone's kill."

"You guys better not get in my way when I start to show off my awesomeness!" Deidara remarked loudly. Everyone brushed off a sudden chill down their spine.

* * *

A/N: What did you think of the meeting of Team 7? This chapter took time because I was lazy. Also writing a war is tough. I'll be relying on a lot of catch-phrases though! This fic has a crakish! tone to it and so I want to experiment with mix of casualness in the face of serious endeavor. I do hope I strike a right balance and I'll be relying on your comments to do so. Please leave a review.


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